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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



A NATURE STUDY READER 




Bamboo. 



' A 

NATURE STUDY READER 



FOR THE 



PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



BY 



JOHN GAYLORD COULTER, Ph. D 

TEACHER OF BOTANY, INSULAR NORMAL SCHOOL 



FULLY ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 

1904 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 
APR 26 1904 
Copyrieht Entry 

CLASS °- XXc. No. 

COPY B 



Copyright, 1904, by 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 



a 






PREFACE 



Success in Nature Study, more than in most other subjects, 
must depend upon the work of the teacher. The following chapters 
are very simple in treatment, and previous training in botany on the 
part of the teacher is not at all essential, yet their use as a reading- 
text alone is not the thing expected. The pupils should make 
almost constant use of a note-book and pencil. The plants 
described have been chosen chiefly on account of their familiarity 
and availability throughout the Islands, and the pupils should make 
their sketches directly from nature. They seem to take consid- 
erable pride in the preparation of such a " Nature Study note-book, ,! 
and it is the best aid to accurate observation. The teacher can 
easily extend the range of topics studied. The thirty chapters 
should not be exhausted in less than sixty or seventy lessons. 

Fundamental principles have been presented through the 
medium of familiar examples, rather than as independent topics, 
simply because it has been the experience of the writer that the 
subject " teaches better" that way, at least in such very elementary 
presentation. Thus, the familiar papaya is made the means of 
acquaintance with the uses of the various parts of the plant, rather 



vi A NATURE STUDY READER 

than to take up the topics "root," "leaves," "flowers," etc., in 
more abstract form. The banana serves to show methods of repro- 
duction. Through pandan, pollination and the light-relation of 
leaves are introduced. This scheme is followed throughout. At 
some points the text is suggestive rather than explicit, for the Fili- 
pino pupil in Nature Study classes has shown himself quite capable 
of seeing the more evident reasons for himself. Numerous ques- 
tions are asked whose answers, though simple, are to be found out- 
side the covers of the book. It is urged that the teacher shall make 
the questioning so far as possible of this character. 

John Gaylord Coulter. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — What this Book is About . i 

II. — About the Papaya . . . 5 

III. — Story of the Young Papaya ............ g 

IV. — About Papaya Flowers 13 

V. — The Uses of Plants to Man . . . . . 17 

VI. — The Useful Plants of the Philippine Islands 22 

VII. — The Banana 27 

VIII. — More About the Banana 32 

IX. — Pandan ; A Shore-lover 38 

X. — Pandan ; A Wind-lover 43 

XI. — Gumamela 47 

XII. — Macahia; the Shame-plant 52 

XIII. — About Rice ....... „ ..... 56 

XIV. — Rice-cultivation 61 

XV. — The Work of Green Leaves 66 

XVI. — Lantana ...... o .'«..... 69 

XVII. — Pandacaqui 74 

XVIII. — Ilang-ilang . . c ......... 78 

XIX. — Cacao ... k .......... 83 

XX. — Aurora ; a Vine 88 

XXI. — Mango 92 

vii 



Vlll 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



CHAPTER 

XXII.— The Soil .... 
XXIII. — Tobacco 
XXIV. — Lansones . . ! 
XXV. — The Coconut-palm . 
XXVI. — Guava or Bayabas . 
XXVII.— Coffee . . 
XXVIII. — Pina or Pineapple . 
XXIX. — Calachuche 
XXX. — Dap-dap and Spanish Flag 



PAGE 

• 97 
, 101 
. 106 
. in 
. 116 

, 122 

. 127 

• 132 
■ 137 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FULL-PAGE CUTS IN COLORS 



Bamboo . 
Lacatan . 
Lantana . 
Cacao 
Lansones 
Coffee 
Dap-dap 
Spanish Flag 



Frontispiece 



PAGE 

3 1 
71 

85 
108 
123 

L38 
141 



OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 

A dry country ............... 2 

An agricultural country .............. 3 

American harvester and thresher ............ 4 

The man-papaya ............... 7 

A young plant coming from the seed ........... 9 

Another young plant, with roots further advanced ......... 10 

The woman-papaya .............. 12 

Flower of the man -papaya ............. 14 

Flower of the man -papaya showing stamens . . . . . . . . . .14 

Flower and young fruit of the woman -papaya 15 

Papaya ovary cut open .............. 15 

Flower branch of the man-papaya 16 

Loading sacks of flour 17 

Irrigation of sugar beets 19 

The timber industrv .20 

Gathering flax for linen manufacture 21 

A rice field 23 

Harvesting hemp 25 

Gathering sugar-cane .............. 26 

Banana plants in a conservator)' ........... .28 

A banana plantation ......... .... 33 

ix 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



PAGE 



Butuhan 

The flower of butuhan ' . 

The flower of butuhan with petals removed 

Loading a ship with bananas . 

A small pandan, showing the prop roots 

Pandan 

Flowers of the man-pandan 

Stamens from the man-pandan 

Butterflies gathering pollen and nectar 

Gumamela . ... 

One -half of the flower of gumamela 

Leaf of gumamela from near the bottom 

Leaf of gumamela from near the top 

Macahia 

Fruit of macahia 

Flower of macahia 

Flower of macahia cut open 

Three kinds of Philippine rice 

Taking the rice home 

Gang-plow 

Drill for planting seed 

Machine for threshing rice 

Portable steam-engine 

Lantana flower 

Pandacaqui 

Pandacaqui flower 

Ilang-ilang 

Flower of ilang-ilang, showing nectar guides 

Flower of ilang-ilang, showing stamens and carpels 

Flowers of cacao 

Aurora ... 

Flower of aurora cut open 

Mango 

Tobacco .... 

Coconut-palm . 

Inflorescence of coconut-palm 

Guava, or bay abas . 

Flower of guava. cut in half 

A coffee plantation . 

Pina, or pineapple 

Calachuche 

A single flower of the Spanish Flag 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



CHAPTER I 

WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT 

Nature Study is the study of all things out-of-doors which 
men have not made. Almost always the first things you see out-of- 
doors are the plants. Plants form the natural covering of nearly 
all the land surfaces of the earth. They are living things, just as 
men and other animals are living things. Without plants, men 
and other animals would die. This book tells about some of the 
common plants of the Philippine Islands. 

In every country of the world plants are very important in the 
life of men, but in no country are they more important than in the 
Philippine Islands. What do you think would happen to the 
Filipino people if all the plants died to-morrow ? . How long do 
you think the people could live ? 

Many parts of the world can not be used for the growing of 
plants which produce food and other valuable products because the 
soil is not fertile. Regions of the earth whose soil produces very 
few plants are called desert regions. People who live in such parts 
of the world must get much of their food from other parts. A 
country whose chief industry is the growing of plants to produce 
food for other parts of the world is called an agricultural country. 
The Philippine archipelago will become one of the best agricultural 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



countries in the world when her people have learned how to make 
the most out of her rich lands. This is one reason why it is 
important for you to learn about plants and how they live. 

All our food and nearly all our money come from plants. We 
have food which comes from animals, but the animals get their 

food from plants. 
So if there were 
no plants there 
would be no 
animals. 

It is not so 
easy to see how 
nearly all the 
monev of the 
Filipino people 
comes from 
plants, but it is 
just as true. 
Many countries 
are rich because 
they have mines 
of gold and silver, or mines of copper and iron and coal. Other 
countries are rich because they have great factories where clothing 
and shoes, tools and machinery, and many other necessary things 
are made. The Filipino people do not have many factories and 
have very few mines. They have instead a country in which many 
of the most valuable plants in the world can grow, and nearly all 
their money comes from selling the products of these plants. Much 
money is paid for the products of all the mines, and much is paid 
for the products of the factories, but both together are not worth 




U 



^F*3 



■■■■ 

A dry country (Arizona), producing very few plants. 



±i 



WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT 



so much as the products of the plants of the world. Men could 
Live without factories and they could live without mines, but without 
plants they would very soon die. 

If the Filipino people use their rich land to produce in the best 
way the many valuable plants which grow here, they will become 
quite as rich and prosperous as people who have many mines and 
factories. In other countries it is not possible to grow many of the 
valuable plants which grow here, and the people of these countries 
are glad to pay a good price for the plant-products of our fertile 
islands. So it will be a very good thing for the Filipino people when 
they have learned how to produce enough plant-products for their 
own use and 
much besides to 
export to other 
countries. 

In these 
beautiful and fer- 
tile islands it is 
possible to pro- 
duce more than 
five times as 
much as is now 
produced. At 
this time (1904) 
the Filipino peo- 
ple buy from 
other countries 
just as much as 

they sell to them. It is easy to see that no people can become very 
rich until they sell more than they buy. When our Filipino farmers 




An agricultural country. Reaping- and loading wheat by- 
machinery in the Western States. 



4 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



have learned how to get the best crops from their farms, this may 
become true for the Philippines. 

In Nature Study you will gain knowledge which is necessary for 
a good understanding of the best ways to cultivate plants. The prod- 
ucts of plants are made much more valuable when the plants are 




American harvester and thrasher combined. 



cultivated. To cultivate a plant means to help it grow. Rice is a 
cultivated plant because the farmer works hard to help it grow and 
produce a good crop of rice seeds. In Nature Study you will learn 
something of the cultivation of plants. You will learn how plants 



ABOUT THE PAPAYA 5 

live and how they produce their young. You will learn what are 
their friends and what are their enemies. When we cultivate plants 
we help their friends and try to destroy their enemies. You will 
learn that animals are necessary helpers in the cultivation of plants. 
You will learn the work which each of the different parts of the plant 
has to do, and how this work is done. 

Plants which men do not cultivate are called wild plants. 
Many valuable plants grow wild in the Philippine Islands. Culti- 
vated plants grow in the fields and in the gardens. Wild plants grow 
in the forests and along the shores and in many other places. It 
would be very hard to find a place in the Philippine Islands where 
neither wild nor cultivated plants can grow. 

Most of the plants which you will study about in this book are 
cultivated plants, but the very first one you are to study about is a 
plant which is very common, but which grows without cultivation. 
It is the papaya. 



CHAPTER II 

ABOUT THE PAPAYA 



The papaya is a plant which grows everywhere in the Philippine 
Islands and has very few enemies. You have already learned that 
plants have friends and enemies. Thus, the grasshoppers and dry 



weather are great enemies of the rice. 



Since the papaya has very few enemies which it is not able to 
overcome, it is not necessary for men to cultivate it or help it grow. 
The fruit of the papaya is good food and it seems to be about as 



6 A NATURE STUDY READER 

good when the papaya grows wild as when it is cultivated, but the 
fruit will grow larger when some of the young fruits are cut away to 
give the others more room. 

One of the reasons why the papaya has very few enemies is 
because it can live in ground which other plants cannot use. It is 
common to see the papaya growing among rocks where the soil is 
very poor. For this reason other plants do not try to crowd it out, 
as the macahia tries to crowd out the rice. The papaya is a very 
strong and healthy plant. If it were not strong and healthy it could 
not grow so well where the soil is very poor and dry. 

The life of papaya is something like the life of the wild 
people who live in the mountains of the Philippine Islands. These 
people take the poor parts of the islands for their homes and so the 
other people leave them alone, for no one cares to crowd them out 
of the poor places. In the same way the papaya takes the poor parts 
of the soil for its home and the other plants do not try to crowd 
it out. 

Every Filipino boy or girl knows that there are two kinds of 
papaya. What do you call the two kinds ? In English they may be 
called the man-papaya and the woman-papaya. How can you tell 
these two kinds of papaya apart? Are the leaves different? Are 
the stems different ? Are they the same height ? Do they have 
the same kind of flowers ? Do both kinds produce fruit ? 

The papaya is a very good plant for us to study first because it 
will show many things about the life of plants which are more diffi- 
cult to see in other plants. The life of one plant is very much like 
the life of all the rest, so that what we learn by studying the papaya 
is true also for thousands of other plants. 

The papaya shows very plainly the different parts of the flower. 
Since there are two kinds of papaya flowers we find in each kind of 



ABOUT THE PAPAYA 

flower just one-half of the parts which we find in a perfect 
Plants which have just one kind of flower must have all the 
parts together and we 
call these flowers perfect 
flowers. The gumamela, 
for example, has perfect 
flowers. But the papaya 
has half the flower-parts 
in the flower of the man- 
papaya and the other half 
in the flower of the woman- 
papaya. You can easily 
see in the pictures the 
difference between these 
two kinds of flowers. By 
looking carefully at the 
flower of the woman- 
papaya, and then at the 
flower of the man-papaya, 
can you see why one pro- 
duces fruit and the other 
does not ? 

Have you ever seen 
a papaya-fruit upon a man- 
papaya tree ? Sometimes 
a small fruit is formed at 
the very end of the flower- 
branch of the man-papaya. 
When you see such a tree, 

yOU Should look Carefully The man-papaya. 



7 

flower, 
flower- 




8 A NATURE STUDY READER 

to see whether the flower at the end of the flower-branch is different 
from the others. Are the flowers from the woman-papaya borne on 
branches or on the main stem ? 

How soon can you tell whether a young papaya is going to be 
a man-tree or a woman-tree ? How high does the plant grow before 
it begins to produce flowers? Some people say that if you cut off 
the stem of a young man-papaya tree just after it has produced its 
first flowers it will become a woman-papaya when it grows up again. 
Do you know whether this is true ? 

The stems of the papaya are very different from the stems of 
other plants. When you break off one of the old leaves of the 
papaya it leaves a mark on the stem. Have you ever noticed these 
marks? Can you see them better on the old part of the stem or on 
the young part at the top ? 

Since the leaves of papaya are very large it is not necessary for 
the plant to have many of them. They are all borne at the top of 
the stem. The top part of the stem and the leaves form what 
is called the crown of the plant. What other common plant has 
very large leaves and only a few of them in a crown at the top of the 
stem ? 

The papaya grows in many other tropical countries besides the 
Philippine Islands, and everywhere in the tropics its fruit is good to 
eat. In temperate countries like the United States the papaya may 
be grown in the gardens if it is protected from the cold of winter, 
but in these countries it does not produce good fruit. 

The parts of a plant which are underground are called roots. Do 
the roots of the papaya go very deeply into the ground or are they 
near the surface ? Are the papaya-plants blown down easily by 
storms ? Do young papaya-plants ever grow up from the bottom of 
the old papaya-plants like the young bananas which grow from the 



STORY OF THE YOUNG PAPAYA 



bottom of the old banana-plant ? How do you think the young 
papaya grows? In the next lesson you will read the story of the 
young papaya. 



CHAPTER III 




STORY OF THE YOUNG PAPAYA 

The young papaya grows up from a seed. Do you 

know what a seed is ? Inside the ripe fruit of papaya 

many small, round bodies may be found. These are the 

seeds. When the seeds are scattered in a good place 

on the ground they will begin to grow into young 

papaya-plants, unless the chickens or 

some other enemies find them and eat 

them up. 

Now a plant must have food just like 
men and animals. When the papaya is 
a very young plant indeed it gets its food 
from inside the seed, but soon the young 
papaya has grown larger and has eaten 
up all the food which was stored for it 
inside the seed. It is like a little chick which has just 
broken out of the egg-shell. Before the little chick is 
hatched it finds its food inside the egg, but when it has 
grown so big that it breaks the shell it must begin to 
scratch for its own food. So the young papaya must 
begin to find its own food after it has eaten everything 
inside the seed. 



A young plant coming 
from the seed, show- 
ing root and stem. 



10 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



The little chick has three parts which help it get its food. It 
has eyes to look for food, legs to run and get it, and a beak for pick- 
ing it up. 

The young papaya has nothing like eyes and legs and beak, yet 
it must have food just like the chick. The three parts of the papaya 
which help it for this purpose we call the root, the stem, and the 
leaves. Since the papaya can not run around and find its food, you 
might think that it gets its food in the ground where 
it grows and that the food is taken up by the roots. 
But this is not quite true. If the root took up the 
food of the papaya what do you think the stem and 
the big leaves would be for ? Why would not the 
whole plant live underground where the food is ? 
Xo, the food of the papaya does not come from 
the ground. It comes from the leaves. You won- 
der how the leaves get the food of the papaya. 
Do they get it from the air ? Do they get it from 
the water which comes up to the leaves 
from the ground ? No, the leaves do not 
get the food of the papaya-plant at all. 
They make it. The leaves of the papaya 
are like little workshops and in them the 
food of the plant is made. 

You can see that in this way the 
young papaya is very different from the 
young chick. Both must have food, but 
the chick goes around and finds its own 
food, while the food of the papaya is made 

in its leaves. This is a thing which you should remember very 
well, for it is a thinor that makes the lives of plants very different 




Another young plant, with 
roots further advanced. 



STORY OF THE YOUNG PAPAYA II 

from the lives of animals. Eaeh must have food, and what is 
food for a plant is also food for an animal, but the great differ- 
ence is that an animal gets its food already made, but a plant 
makes its own food. 

After we have learned that the leaves of the papaya are for 
making the food of the plant, we should learn what the roots and 
the stems are for. Let us think of a young papaya which has used 
up all the food inside the seed. What is it going to do next ? Can 
the young leaves begin to make food without any help from the 
roots and the stem ? No, the roots and the stem must help. If we 
could watch a young papaya as it begins to grow, we would see that 
the first part of the plant which comes out from the seed is the little 
root. This is the part of the plant which must begin the work of help- 
ing to make food. 

If we are going to make a dress or a coat, the first thing we must 
do is to get the cloth out of which the coat or the dress is to be made. 
In the same way the young papaya must get the material out of 
which food is made, and it is the work of the root to get this material. 
So the young root begins to grow down into the soil and there it 
finds the things which the leaves know how to make into food. 
These things are in the water of the soil, and when the root takes up 
this water it takes into the plant the things which are in the water. 
You all know that there is salt in the water of the sea. You all 
know that when you put a lump of sugar into coffee it is soon 
dissolved in the coffee. In the same way the things which the 
plant uses in making its food are dissolved in the water of the soil. 

While the root of the young papaya has been growing down 
into the soil, the stem has been growing up into the sunlight. 
When the stem has grown up a little way the young leaves begin 
to unfold and spread out in the light. They seem to be trying to 



a . ,: 



5TVIV 7Z.-.II7. 



ight they can. Light is necessary to help the lea^ 



:; 



:\\ 




arselves now what the stem is for. 
ind the light is ; ng on them r 
they are ready to begin the work 
; : rnjik:::^ :: : :: A'_:t:i;:v :..t 
root has begun to take up the 
water of the soil and in this wa- 
ter are the things out of which 
:.ir -t; r- ;;•:; -i.ikr :::■::. The 
water passes along the stem un- 
til it reaches the young leaves. 
Then the little workshops begin 
their work. All day while the 
light is shining on them they 
are busy making food for the 
"/.::.: In the night the food 
which is made in the leaves : 
the young papaya passes into 
the stem and goes to feed all 
the hungry parts of the plant. 

X : : •_; ;; .;. 5tt .;: -:::. 

of these three parts of the 

: ling papaya-plant has to do. 

Every part of a plant has some 

work to do. 

- i -.-:i:i -i. It is the work of the root 

to hold the plant firmly in the 
ground and to get the material out of which the leaves can make 




ABOUT PAPAYA FLOWERS 13 

It is the work of the leaves to make food for the plant. 
They could not do this work without the sunlight which gives them 
the power to do it. 

The stem has three kinds of work. First, to lift the leaves up 
into the sunlight. Second, to carry up to the leaves the water which 
comes from the root. Third, to carry the food which is made in the 
leaves down to all hungry parts of the plant. 



CHAPTER IV 

ABOUT PAPAYA FLOWERS 

After the young papaya has learned how to use its roots and 
steins and leaves, it grows very rapidly. Do you know how long it 
takes a papaya to grow up from a seed and bear fruit ? There are 
some trees which take eight or ten years to become as large as a full- 
grown papaya, but if you watch a young papaya you may see that 
it grows several inches in a few weeks. 

The food which is made in the leaves is used in making 1 the 
new parts of the plant. When the papaya has learned how to find 
its food and how to grow you might think that it has learned all 
there is for a plant to do. It is true that the young papaya could 
become a large and an old plant by the work of its stems and 
its roots and its leaves alone, but there is another very important 
work which the papaya must do before it dies. The work of the 
roots and the stems and the leaves is not enough. There is the work 
of the flowers and the fruit and the seeds yet to be done. The 
work of roots, stems, and leaves is simply the work of living and is 



14 



A NATURE STUDY READER 




Flower of the 
man-papaya. 



called nutrition. The work of the flowers, fruit, and seeds is the 
work of producing new papaya-plants, and is called the work of 
reproduction. Plants die and plants are born just like animals. 
Each plant before it dies must produce other young plants, or soon 
there would be none left in the world. 

Now you must learn how the papaya produces its young. You 
have already learned that the young papayas come from seeds, but 
you have not learned how the seeds are produced. 
You may learn this by studying the flowers of papaya, 
for it is the work of the flowers to produce the fruit 
and the seeds. The papaya is a good plant to show 
you the work of flowers, because it has two kinds of 
flowers. One kind does part of the work and the 
other kind does the other part. Each kind of flower 
is quite simple. 
First look at the flowers of the man-papaya. They are much 
smaller than the flowers of the woman-papaya and there are many 
more of them. On the outside you find five white 
parts which are like simple little leaves. These five 
white little leaves form a part of the flower which 
is called the corolla. Each of the little leaves is 
called a petal. In the lower part of the flower the 
petals are united in the form of a tube. Now if 
you look in the center of a ripe man-flower you will 
find at the top of this tube several small yellow 
parts. You can see these yellow parts better if you 
take a sharp knife and split the tube. Then by 
looking carefully you will find that there are ten of these small 
yellow parts. There are five in a ring on the outside and five in a 
ring on the inside. The outer ones are just twice as long as the 




Flower of the man- 
papaya cut open 
to show the sta- 
mens. 



ABOUT PAPAYA FLOWERS 



15 



inner ones. These small yellow parts of the man-flower are called 

stamens. You can see the stamens very well in the picture of the 

man-flower. 

In the tops of the stamens, when they are ripe, you can find a 

little yellow powder, finer than dust. This yellow powder is called 

pollen. It is the work of the man- 
flowers to produce this pollen. You 

will learn what the pollen is for when 

you study the woman-flower. 

The woman-flower is much larger. 

It, too, has five petals, but each one is 

six or seven times as large as a petal of 

a man-flower, and they are not joined 

together at the bottom. It is in the 

center of the woman-flower that we 

find the most important part. This 

part is called the pistil. At the top of 

the pistil there are five short branches 

and each of these little branches is branched again. Can you see 
this part of the pistil in the picture of the woman- 
flower ? It is called the stigma. Below the stigma 
we find a much larger part which is nearly round. 
If you cut this part open you will find inside of it 
the very young seeds. This round part is called the 
ovary and the very young seeds are called ovules. 
The ovary becomes the fruit. Can you find an ovary 
in the man-flowers ? 

Ovary cut open, 

showing stig- Suppose there were no man-papaya plants. Do 

ma at the top u ^j^ t h at t h e vary would become a ripe fruit 

and very young J . . 

seed within. with good seeds inside of it? It the ovary can be- 




Flower and young fruit of the 
woman-papaya. 




i6 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



come a good fruit without the help of the man-flowers, then 
what are the man-flowers for ? But we find that if there were 
no man-papaya trees there could be no good fruit and seed. 
The man-papaya is very important in helping make the fruit 
and seed. 

Now you can understand the purpose of the pollen. The 
pollen of the man-flowers is necessary to help the woman-flowers 
produce fruit. The pollen must be brought from the man-flowers to 
the stigma of the woman-flowers. The stigma is for the purpose of 
receiving the pollen. After the pollen has reached the stigma, the 
petals of the woman-flower fall off, and presently the stigma withers 
up, but the ovary grows larger and larger until at last it becomes the 

ripe fruit of papaya. In this 
ripe fruit are many hundred 
seeds, each one of which can 
produce a new plant if it falls 
in a good place. 

You have learned that the 
pollen must be brought from 
the man-flower to the woman- 
flower. But you have not learned how this is done. Can you think 
how the pollen may be brought from one flower to another ? 

You will learn in another lesson how this is done. You will 
learn that there are little messengers that carry pollen from one 
flower to another. You will learn that the petals are for the pur- 
pose of attracting these messengers. You will learn that these are 
not messengers for papaya alone, but for many hundreds of other 
flowers. Nearly all flowering plants must have pollen carried 
from one flower to another before good fruit and good seeds are 
produced. 




Flower branch of man-papaya, bearing small 
fruit at the end. 



THE USES OF PLANTS TO MAN 



17 



CHAPTER V 



THE USES OF PLANTS TO MAN 



The first and most important use of plants to man is for food. 
Probably no country has more kinds of plants which are used for 
food than the Philippine Islands. Do you think you could write a 
list of all the plants which the Filipino people use for food ? Al~ 




Loading sacks of flour in Oregon. 



most any Filipino boy or girl can think of more than a hundred 
kinds of plants which are used for food. 

There are many different ways in which the parts of a plant are 



18 A NATURE STUDY READER 

used for food. Some parts must be cooked before they are eaten ; 
other parts may be eaten without cooking. In some food-plants we 
eat only the seeds, in others we eat the entire fruit, and in a few we 
eat the leaves as well. 

Rice and wheat and corn, or maize, are called cereals. The 
cereals form the most important group of food-plants in the world. 
We eat only the seeds of cereals and they need to be cooked. In 
countries of the temperate regions, like the United States, wheat is 
the most important food-plant. The seeds of wheat are ground into 
a fine powder called flour, and from this flour bread is made. Flour 
is sometimes made from corn and rice in the same way. One of 
the reasons why food which comes from the seeds of plants is espe- 
cially valuable is that it may be kept for a long time without spoil- 
ing, if it is kept dry. Other plant-foods must be eaten while they 
are fresh. 

In the markets of the United States the fresh plant-foods are 
called either " fruits " or "vegetables." Sweet plant-foods which 
are eaten without cooking are called " fruit." The banana, the 
orange, the chico, the mango, and the lansones are examples of 
common Philippine " fruit." But in Nature Study we use the 
word fruit to describe that part of the plant which contains the 
seeds, no matter whether it is sweet and can be eaten raw or not. 

Rice, potatoes, and maize are common examples of Philippine 
vegetables. They need to be cooked before they are eaten. In 
Nature Study should we call the potato a fruit ? Do cucumbers 
and tomatoes contain seed ? 

Plants are even more important to animals as food than they 
are to man. Since animals, especially horses and cattle, are valu- 
able to man, the plants which supply food for these animals may 
often be sold for a good price. In the United States one of the 



THE USES OF PLANTS TO MAN 



19 



most valuable crops which the farmer produces is the crop of hay or 
dried grass which the horses and cattle eat in the winter. He also 
grows much oats and barley for the horses. He feeds corn to his 
hogs, and this is a reason why the hogs of the United States are 
very much better than the hogs of the Philippine Islands. 




Irrigation of sugar-beets. 



Land that is covered with grass which is good food for 
horses and cattle is called grazing-land. Much money is to be 
made by keeping cattle and horses on good grazing-land and 
driving them to market when they are ready to be sold. In the 



20 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



Philippine Islands there are many square miles of fine grazing- 
land, but very few cattle and horses are kept on it. 

Food is the most important product of plants, and the second 
in importance is timber. Think of the hundred uses of timber ! It 
is used in building houses, ships, wagons, bridges, railroads, and 




The timber industry. 



many other very important things. Now we already know that no 
country in the world can produce better food-plants than the Phil- 
ippine Islands. If the same thing is true of timber-plants then the 
Islands are fortunate indeed ! And this is true. Many of the 



THE USES OF PLANTS TO MAN 



21 

Millions 



finest kinds of timber in the world are to be found here, 
of acres are covered with fine and valuable trees. 

Nearly all of this land is owned by the Government and good 
care is taken that the fine timber is not wasted, but that it is cut 
down only as fast as it grows up. In many countries where timber 
is valuable the trees have been cut down so rapidly that now there 
is very little forest left. It is just as necessary not to be wasteful 
in harvesting the crop of the forest as it is in harvesting the crop of 
the fields. 

There are many forest-crops besides timber which are valuable. 
Rubber and gutta-percha trees are found in the forests of the Philip- 
pines. Gutta- 
percha is nec- 
essary in the 
manufacture 
of submarine 
cables and 
sells for a high 
price. Like 
rubber, it is 
made from a 
milky juice 
which comes 
out of the 
trunks of the 
trees w hen 
they are cut. 
Valuable 

gums and resins are also found in the trunks of certain kinds of 
Philippine trees. 




Gathering flax for linen manufacture. 



22 A NATURE STUDY READER 

There are two plant-products in the Islands which are not used 
for food or for timber. They are the products for which the Islands 
are best known. Both of them are made from the leaves of plants. 
These plant-products are hemp and tobacco. 

Another class of plants which is very useful to man is formed 
by those plants from whose fibers cloth is made. The most im- 
portant of this class of plants is cotton. The best cotton is grown 
in the southern part of the United States. Some cotton is grown 
in northern Luzon and it could be grown in many other parts of 
the Islands. Silk and woolen cloths are animal products. Do you 
know from what plants jusi and pina are made ? 

A fourth use of plants to man is their use for medicine. 
Nearly all medicines are made from plants, and the science of plant- 
study, or botany, was begun by men who were searching for plant- 
products which would be valuable for medicine. 

We may say, then, that the four great uses of plants to man 
are for food, for shelter, for clothing, and for medicine. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE USEFUL PLANTS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 

No country in the world can produce more valuable and useful 
plants than the Philippine Islands. In many other countries, how- 
ever, the farmers have learned much more about the cultivation of 
plants than have the Filipino farmers and so have made their crops 
more valuable. 

This should not be so any longer. The farmers of the Philip- 



THE USEFUL PLANTS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



23 



pine Islands should be as good as their land. Since there is no 
finer farming-land than may be found here, there should be no 
better farmers than the Filipino farmers. This may be so in a few 
years if the Filipino people learn about the useful plants of their 
country and cultivate them in the best way. 

Which is the most useful and valuable plant in the Philippine 
Islands ? Probably every Filipino boy or girl would answer this 




^: 





m^^* 


*<fl 
















«-:-• .A 










.'."■xi 


l ^W5S^ 


r**M« 


. ;■ ^h,-. -*K» , jgHIH 








. 






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**»v4, 


' ** • 


*$ 






T 


'*i 




■ * A. $&*** • 






!HKga^*^<ffi 


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A rice-field. 



question by saying that rice is the most useful plant to the Filipino 
people. Certainly rice is of more use to more people than any other 
plant. Many of the valuable plants of the Islands might die and 
most of the people would not be the worse for it, but when the rice 



24 A NATURE STUDY READER 

dies there is much suffering and hunger. The rice-plant should be 
studied carefully to learn how best to cultivate it and make sure of 
a good crop. 

It has been necessary in recent years for the Filipino people to 
buy much of their rice from other countries. Many shiploads have 
come from China. This should not be so. There is plenty of good 
rice-land and the Filipino people should produce enough rice for 
themselves and much to ship to other countries besides. 

Next to rice, bamboo is perhaps the most useful plant. The 
first thing a man needs is food. The next thing is a house to give 
him shelter. Most of the Filipino people live in houses built of 
bamboo and covered with a roof made of the leaves of the nipa- 
palm. Bamboo is not only useful in the building of houses, but 
has very many other uses. What are some of the other uses of 
bamboo ? 

There are many important food-plants in the Islands besides 
rice. Corn or maize and potatoes are important, although they grow 
better in other countries. In some parts of the Islands corn is used 
by the people even more than rice. 

In no country are more kinds of sweet fruits to be found. 
Philippine mangoes are the best in the world. Everywhere bananas 
grow and there are more than twenty different kinds. How many 
do you know ? Lansones, chico, atis, and mangostin are delicious 
Philippine fruits. Have you eaten all of these ? Which do you 
like best ? None of these can be grown in the United States, but the 
oranges of California and Florida are much better than those which 
grow in the Philippine Islands. This is because much care has been 
taken in the cultivation of oranges in America. The Philippine 
oranges may be much improved by cultivation. 

The plants which you have just read about are those which are 



THE USEFUL PLANTS OF THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS 



25 



most important to the Filipino people for their own use. There are 
others, however, which are more important than these for the pur- 
pose of export. Products which are sent to other countries are 
called exports. The most important plants whose products are ex- 
ported from the Philippine Islands are abaca, niog or coconut, 
tobacco, and sugar-cane. 

Abaca produces the famous Manila hemp from which the best 
rope in the world is made. No other country can grow this won- 
derful plant 
so well as it 
erows in the 
Philippine Isl- 
ands. There 
is always a 
strong de- 
mand in the 
markets of the 
world for Ma- 
nila hemp. 
More of it 
could be pro- 
duced without 
the 




Harvesting hemp. 



causing 



price to decrease. It is one of the crops which the Filipino farmer 
should cultivate more than he does to-day. The only danger of 
reducing the good prices now paid for Philippine hemp comes from 
mixing bad fibers with good ones. That has been done bv some dis- 
honest dealers in hemp. To do such a thing is to injure the whole 
Filipino people, for if it is found that Philippine hemp is not always 
reliable and good the price for it will become much lower. 



26 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



The coconut is very important both for home or "domestic" 
use, and for export to foreign countries. Cana and niog, or bamboo 
and coconut, as we say in English, are the two plants which have a 
hundred different uses. The coconut-palm is perhaps better known 
to the people of temperate regions than any other tropical plant, for 




Gathering sugar-cane. 



dried coconut is sold all over the world. What are four different 
and valuable plant-products which come from the coconut ? 

Much fine tobacco is grown in the islands of the West Indies, 
especially in Cuba. This is a crop which can also be grown in the 
United States, but not so well as in the tropics. The islands of 



THE BANANA 27 

Cuba, Sumatra, and Luzon are the best tobacco-producing countries 
in the world. In Cuba and Sumatra more study and care has been 
given to the cultivation of tobacco than in the Philippines, but there 
is no reason why Luzon should not produce as fine tobacco as any 
in the world if it is carefully cultivated. 

The islands of the Visayan group have fine land for the grow- 
ing of sugar-cane. This is another of the Philippine crops which 
may be much improved by the use of better methods. 

These are but a few of the many plants which make up the 
wonderful abundance of plant-wealth with which the Philippine 
Islands are blessed. We must remember the rich forest-crops which 
grow wild. We must remember the cacao, the cofTee, the cotton, 
the piiia, and the ilang-ilang which will all bring wealth to the 
farmer who cultivates them carefully. 

So it is easy to understand why Filipino boys and girls should 
learn all they can about the plants of their beautiful Islands. The 
wealth of the people will always come from the products of the 
plants, and the value of these products is increased many times 
when we understand how the plants grow and cultivate them in the 
best way. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE BANANA 

It would be hard to find Filipino hoys and girls who could not 
tell the name of a banana as soon as they saw its big leaves. Ba- 
nanas grow everywhere in the tropics, and the fruit is sent to all parts 

of the temperate regions. Although children who live where there 
5 



28 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



is ice and snow in winter may have many bananas to eat, they prob- 
ably would not know a banana-plant when they saw it unless the 



w 




Banana-plants growing in a conservatory with other tropical plants. 



THE BANANA 29 

ripe fruit was hanging from it. No plants which grow in the tem- 
perate regions have such huge leaves as the banana-plant. In the 
United States bananas are sometimes grown in glass houses where 
the air is kept warm all the time. These glass houses are called 
conservatories. They are built of glass so that there may be plenty 
of light. Why is it necessary for plants to have plenty of light ? 

The bananas which are sent from warm countries to be eaten in 
cold countries are picked while they are still green. If they were 
picked when they are ripe they would decay long before reaching 
their destination. The green bananas ripen slowly in America if 
they are kept in a warm place. You very often see men with little 
carts going about in the cities of America selling bananas which have 
come a thousand miles from the south. Some ships come to the 
United States loaded with nothing but bananas. Thousands of 
bunches are sent in trains to all parts of the country. Those sent 
from Central America to the United States are larger than Philippine 
bananas, but they do not have so pleasant a taste as when they are 
allowed to become nearly ripe on the trees. 

There are more different kinds of bananas in the Philippines 
than are ever seen in America. Can you tell your teacher the names 
of ten different kinds ? Which kind do you think is best to eat ? 
Here is a picture of the butuhan. The butuhan is not good for eat- 
ing but is the most common kind. Why is it not good for eating? 
Many people are very fond of the lacatan. Is lacatan cultivated or 
wild ? Does the butuhan grow wild ? We may call the butuhan 
the most successful kind because it is the most common. 

How many different parts are there in a banana-plant ? In the 
picture you can see the stem and the big leaves and the flower-part 
and some of the fruit. What is the part which you can not see in 
the picture ? 



30 A NATURE STUDY READER 

The leaf is so very large that you can easily see its different 
parts. In the center is a strong, stiff part called the midrib. It is 
like a strong bone in the body of the leaf and holds it up so that it 
can do its work. From the midrib, other ribs run out to the edge 
of the leaf. These smaller ribs are called the veins of the leaf. In 
the leaf of banana the veins all have the same direction. They run 
straight from the center to the edge of the leaf. Did you notice the 
veins of the leaf of papaya ? Are they all in the same direction ? 

Since the veins of a banana-leaf all run the same way it is easy 
to tear the leaf that way, but very difficult to tear it the other way, 
across the veins. Nearly all the old leaves of banana are torn into 
strips by the wind. It does not kill the banana-leaves to be torn in 
this way. They seem to do their work just as well as before, but if 
you cut a banana-leaf across the veins, it will soon die. This is be- 
cause the veins, besides giving strength to the leaf, are for the purpose 
of carrying to its different parts the materials necessary for its work. 
What other part of the plant receives the materials which are neces- 
sary for the work of the leaf ? The veins also carry back into the 
stem of the plant the food which is manufactured in the leaves. 

The banana, like the papaya, grows up very rapidly. It does 
not grow up from seeds, but has an underground part of the stem 
which sends up side-shoots or suckers. These suckers may be cut 
away and planted in other places. When the big leaves of the sucker 
begin to unfold they grow very fast. Sometimes a leaf grows sev- 
eral inches in one day. First there is a long, green roll, formed of 
two leaves. When these unroll other leaves appear, and thus the 
beautiful, spreading crown is formed. The stem is formed of the 
leaf-stalks or petioles which are rolled one over the other. 

Do you know how long it takes a banana-plant to grow up from 
the sucker and produce fruit ? Most of the bananas which are eaten 




Lacatan. 



32 A NATURE STUDY READER 

in America come from the West Indies. There the first crop of fruit 
is ready in less than a year from the time of planting. Do the bana- 
nas grow so quickly as that in the Philippines ? 

The fruits and not the leaves of the banana are valuable, yet we 
know that if we cut off the leaves or let horses eat them there will 
be no fruit. The Filipino horses seem to be very fond of young 
banana-leaves. There is another plant which is much like the ba- 
nana, whose fruit is not valuable but whose leaves are. Have you 
seen this plant ? It is the abaca. The abaca belongs to the same 
family of plants as the banana. It may be called the cousin of the 
banana. 

Since the banana and the abaca have such large, spreading 
leaves they are useful not only for their own sake, but also to shelter 
other useful plants which need a good deal of shade when they are 
young. It is common to use bananas to shade young cacao-plants, 
and abaca may be well used for the same purpose. 



CHAPTER VIII 

MORE ABOUT THE BANANA 

Have you ever watched a young banana-plant grow up from the 
bottom of an old one ? It is hard to find an old banana-plant with- 
out young ones growing up around it, unless the baby banana-plants 
have been cut down or eaten by the goats or horses. These young 
banana-plants or suckers soon become too crowded together if they 
are all allowed to grow. It is best to cut away all but three or four. 
The suckers which are cut away may be planted in other places. 



MORE ABOUT THE BANANA 



33 



Since the large leaves need plenty of room, the suckers should be 
planted about twelve or fourteen feet apart. 

The banana is one of the easiest plants to cultivate and one of 
the most productive. The best bananas are grown where the soil is 




A banana-plantation. 



deep and has plenty of the decayed parts of plants in it. The de- 
cayed parts of plants supply rich food-material for the roots of living 
plants. Do you know about how long one banana-plant can live ? 
Do you know how many bunches of bananas one plant can produce ? 




Butuhan. 



MORE ABOUT THE BANANA 35 

You know that papaya-plants grow up from seeds and that 

banana-plants grow up from suckers. Do you know whether 
banana-plants ever produce good seeds ? Can you see the seeds 
in the fruit of lacatan ? You can see them easily in the fruit of 
butuhan, but do you think that these seeds are able to produce new 
plants? It is easy to understand that if the seeds of banana were 
good for producing new plants the fruit would not be so good to 
eat. The seeds of lacatan are so small and weak that we eat them 
without noticing them. 

Is it better for a plant to produce its young by means of seeds or 
by means of suckers ? This is a rather difficult question to answer, 
but we can certainly see that the seed-me.thod is better in some 
ways than the sucker-method. Seeds are often carried by the birds 
or by the wind far away from the parent-plant and grow up where 
there is plenty of room. Unless men transplant them, the suckers 
must grow up very near the old plants, and many of them die from 
being crowded too closely together. When plants are crowded too 
closelv together there is not enough food-material for all the roots 
and not enough light for all the leaves. 

Now let us look at the flower-part of the banana. The flowers 
of bananas are all a good deal alike, but perhaps you will find those 
of butuhan the easiest to get. In the center of the plant we find a 
large red part which has something of the shape of a heart. Is this 
part a single flower or is it composed of many flowers ? We shall 
have to open it to be sure. On the outside we find dark-red leaves. 
Beneath each of these stiff leaves a row of yellow or white flowers 
is to be found. So we may be sure that the large, red part is not a 
single flower, but is composed of many flowers separated by the red 
leaves. Such a group of flowers is called an inflorescence, and the 
red leaves are called bracts. The pink flowers of cadena d'amor 

7 



36 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



and the man-flowers of papaya are also arranged in inflorescences, 
though not so close together as the flowers of banana. The flowers 
of the palm-trees are also arranged in inflorescences. Have you 
ever eaten a young inflorescence of banana ? It is 
good to eat when cooked. 

Under the first red bract we find flowers which are 
about two inches long. The flowers under the next 
bracts are a little shorter, and if you pull off the bracts 
one at a time you can at last find flowers which are 
less than one inch long. You can see very plainly how 
the lower part of the flower slowly changes into the 
fruit. You learned from papaya that. 
this part of the flower is called the 
ovary. You should make six or seven 
pencil-pictures of banana-flowers, begin- 
ning with the youngest and finishing 
with the fruit itself. 
You will notice many differences between the 
flowers of banana and those of papaya. In the first 
place, the banana has only one kind of flower while 
the papaya has two. For this reason all the flower- 
parts of banana must be in the same flower. The 
corolla of papaya has a regular shape, like a wheel. 




The flower of 
butuhan. 



The corolla of banana is irregular. Then in the 



The flower of bu- 
tuhan, with pet- 
als removed. 

The fruit is formed 
from the lower part. 



woman-flower of papaya the petals are fastened be- 
low the ovary. In banana the petals are fastened 
above the ovary. The petals of banana are not 
separate like those of woman-papaya. They are 
united in a long tube, which spreads open when the flower is ripe. 
At the top of the corolla you may see five large stamens. Inside 



MORE ABOUT THE BANANA 



37 



of these stamens you find a swollen part, like the knob on the end 
of a cane. This is the stigma. You remember that the stigma of 
papaya is divided into branches and is closely fastened to the top of 
the ovary. Since the ovary of banana is below the petals there is a 




Loading a ship with bananas. 



long, slender part to connect the stigma with the ovary. You can 
see this part when you cut the flower open. It is called the style. 
Nearly all flowers have styles, so that we say the pistil is composed 
of ovary, style, and stigma. 



38 A NATURE STUDY READER 

Now that the flower is cut open you can see the stamens very 
plainly. How many are there ? Are they fastened to the corolla 
or to the bottom of the flower ? Can you find any. pollen ? 

There is still another very important '.difference between the 
flowers of banana and the flowers of papaya. You learned that 
the pollen of papaya is carried from the stamens of one flower to 
the stigma of another. You learned that this transfer of pollen 
occurs in most flowers even though stamens and stigma are to be 
found in the same flower. You learned that this is necessary in 
order to make good seed. Now in banana the pollen is not trans- 
ferred from one flower to another. This is one of the reasons why 
the banana does not have good seed and must produce its young by 
means of suckers. When you open the banana-flower you can see 
that the stigma is covered with pollen from the stamens of the same 
flower. The pollen-bearing parts of the stamens, which are called 
"anthers," grow very close to the end of the pistil, so that the pol- 
len is sure to reach it. 



CHAPTER IX 

PANDAN ; A SHORE-LOVER 

The pandan is a peculiar plant, common along the shores of all 
tropical countries. You can find it in nearly all parts of the Phil- 
ippine Islands. The only important use of pandan to the Filipino 
people is the use of the leaves for making mats. Can you explain 
how this is done ? 

You may know pandan by its strange roots. These roots are 
as much in the air as they are in the ground. Because they seem to 



PANDAN; A SHORE-LOVER 39 

prop the plant up, they are ealled prop-roots. You can often find 
roots of pandan which have begun to grow down from the stem, 
but which have not yet reached the ground. At the end of these 
roots the " root- 
cap " is always 

to be found. If £ V^lfl HB ^ ' / ^^ ^k 

you pull off this 
cap the tender, 
growing" end is 
found beneath. 
The root-cap is 
always found at 
the end of grow- 
ing roots, but in 
very few plants 
is it so easy to 
examine as in 
pandan. Usual- 
ly it is deep un- 
der the ground 
and comes off 
when we pull 
the plant up. 
The root-cap is 
very necessary 
when the root 

IS growing in A small pandan, showing the prop-roots. 

the soil, pushing 

its way deeper and deeper. Without it, the tender tip would soon 

be bruised and injured. Of course the cap is not so useful while 




40 A NATURE STUDY READER 

the end of the root is in the air, yet its presepce proves that the part 
we are examining is not a branch, of the stem. It is a true root, 
trying to reach the soil. Protecting caps are not so necessary for 
the growing ends of stems and branches. Of course it is much 
easier to grow in the air than in the ground. Besides, the tender 
tips of stems and branches are protected by the young leaves which 
curve over the end. Roots never have leaves. 

The leaves of pandan are also peculiar. They are hard and 
tough and have stiff points along the edges. It is hard to pull them 
without scratching the hands. They are long and narrow, and, 
when young, they point straight upward. When they are older they 
bend in the middle and the outer end droops toward the ground. 

Now we know that every part of a plant is usually for some pur- 
pose. Do you think we can tell the purpose of the prop-roots and the 
hard, stiff leaves of pandan with their peculiar shape and position ? 
Why are they so different from the roots and leaves of nearly all 
other plants ? 

If we are to understand the purposes of the parts of a plant we 
must always think of the place where it lives. We can understand 
the peculiar parts of pandan better if we remember that it lives most 
commonly along the shores. It may be called a " shore-lover." 

Now you know that along the shores of the Philippine Islands 
many plants are killed every year by the salt water which is blown in 
from the ocean by the typhoons. Along the Luneta, which borders 
the shore of Manila Bay at Manila, no plants can be grown except 
those which have hard, tough leaves which will not be killed by the 
driven spray. Salt water is much worse for plants than the fresh 
water which strikes them as rain, however hard the rain may be 
driven by the wind. The salt kills tender leaves. So if a plant is 
a shore-lover it must have hard, tough leaves like those of pandan. 



PANDAN; A SHORE-LOVER 41 

The shape and position of the leaves, as well as their toughness, 
help panclan in its life on the shores. They are long and narrow 
and may be whipped in the wind without being torn. Their veins 
run in the same direction. Their sharp points or spines keep them 
from being eaten by animals. 

Along the shore there is very little shade. Shore-lovers have 
the heat and light of the sun on them all day long. You know that 
green plants must have light, yet they may get too much, both 
of light and heat, unless their leaves are somewhat like the leaves 
of pandan. The leaves of pandan point either toward the sun or 
toward the ground. So in midday, when the sun is brightest and 
the heat is greatest, they do not get so much light and heat as if 
their broad sides were toward the sun. The rays of the sun at mid- 
day do not shine straight upon them, but at an angle. This is an- 
other thing which helps pandan to live where other plants would 
quickly die. 

Now can we explain the strange roots of pandan ? Does it 
have roots which are half in the ground and half in the air because it 
is a shore-lover? This is not an easy question to answer. We think 
that the prop-roots of pandan may be due to the tides, yet of course 
pandan often lives and has prop-roots where the tides never reach 
them. Do you know what tides are ? Do you know what tide- 
marks are ? 

For boys and girls who live along the shores these are very easy 
questions. They know that the water goes out at some times and 
comes back at other times. These changes of water are called the 
tides. When the water comes up high on the land it is called high- 
tide. When it goes out it is called low-tide. There is a low-tide 
mark and a high-tide mark. As you walk along the shore it is very 
easy to see the high-tide mark. It is shown by the mud which is left 




Pandan. 



PANDAN; A WIND-LOVER 43 

by the water when the tide goes out. Now it is very common for 
the patidan to grow between the tide-marks. When it is low-tide 
the prop-roots are exposed to the air, but when it is high-tide they 
are covered with water and can do the natural work of roots. So 
this arrangement of the roots seems to help the pandan live between 
the tide-marks. 

There is one other very important reason why the pandan is a 
shore-lover. It is because its peculiar fruits are scattered by the 
waters of the sea. They float in the salt water and may be carried 
great distances without being injured. At last they are washed 
high up on the shore by the waves in some storm, and there they 
soon form young pandan-plants. As you walk along the shores it 
is very common to find pieces of pandan-fruit washed up by the 
waves, perhaps half buried in the sand. It is a compound fruit. 
That is, the fruit is not formed from a single flower, but is formed 
from the whole inflorescence of female flowers. Each of the small 
parts of the fruit of pandan contains a seed. It does not injure 
them to be buried in the sand. It is a sort of natural planting. 



CHAPTER X 

PANDAN ; A WIND-LOVER 

The fruit of pandan is not to be found at all times of the 
year, like the fruit of papaya or banana. You may have some 
trouble in finding it, but, when you do, you will see that it looks a 
good deal like the fruit of pina. The leaves of pandan and pifia 
also look much alike. In America the fruit of pina is called pine- 



44 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



apple, but in England and the English colonies it is usually called 
pine. For this reason the pandan has been called by the English 
" screw-pine," although pandan and pina are not closely related 
like banana and abaca. There is another group of plants, very dif- 
ferent from both the pandan and pina, which are also called pines. 
These pines are tall trees which are common in temperate regions, 
but rare in the tropics, except in the mountains. In the Philippine 

Islands they are to be found in the mountains 
of Benguet and Zam bales provinces. The 
leaves of pine-trees are hard and are shaped 
like needles. They remain on the tree all 
winter long, no matter how much snow and 
ice there may be. Pine-trees furnish one of 
the most useful kinds of timber in the world. 
Although the pandan or screw-pine and 
the true pines are very different plants in 
nearly every way, in one important thing they 

are alike. They both 
use the wind for the 
transfer of the pollen 
from one flower to an- 
other. For this reason 
they are both called 
wind-lovers. Like pa- 
paya, pandan has two 
kinds of flowers. The 
male flowers produce 
pollen ; the female flowers produce fruit. Yet the flowers of pan- 
dan do not look at all like those of papaya They do not have 
bright-colored petals or pleasant odors. Indeed, you might think 





FloTvers of the man-pandan. Stamens from man-pandan. 



PANDAN; A WIND-LOVER 45 

at first that they are not flowers at all, but since they produce 
either pollen or fruit we know that they must be flowers, however 
strange their appearance may be. They are arranged in close 
inflorescences, like the flowers of banana. The male flowers are 
composed of nothing but the many small, white stamens. The 
female flowers are composed of nothing but the pistils. They may 
be called naked flowers. 

Now it is time for you to understand why most flowers are 
not naked, but are clothed with bright corollas and have pleasant 
odors. You can understand the purpose of these parts best by com- 
paring them with flowers like those of pandan which do not have 
these parts. 

You learned from papaya that the pollen must be transferred 
from the stamens of one flower to the stigma of another, or else 
good seeds and fruit will not be produced. You learned that the 
pollen of banana is not transferred from one flower to another, and 
bananas do not produce good seed. Now if you watch bright-col- 
ored flowers on sunny days you will see that they are often visited 
by bees and butterflies and other insects. These insects fly from 
flower to flower seeking the sweet honey or nectar which is to be 
found in the corollas. You might think that the insects are ene- 
mies of the flowers, since they rob them of their sweet nectar, but 
the truth is that they are among the best friends which the flower 
has. The flowers are very glad of their visits. The bright colors 
and pleasant odors are for the very purpose of attracting these in- 
sects so that they will come to the flowers. The sweet nectar is a 
food of which they are very fond. The flowers are glad to give it 
to them in payment for their visits. 

Why ? Because these insects are the special messengers which 
carry the pollen from one flower to another. Because, while the 



4 6 



A NATURE STUDY READER 




Butterflies visiting flowers to 
carry away pollen and nectar- 



insects are getting the nectar, some of the 
pollen is sure to stick to their bodies, and 
when they go to the next flower it is 
rubbed off on the rough or sticky surface 
of the stigma. Xow you can understand 
why many flowers are clothed with bright 
corollas and have pleasant odors. Such 
flowers may be called insect-lovers. Xow, 
too, you can understand why the flowers 
of wind-lovers, like pandan, are naked. 
Bright colors and pleasant odors would 
not attract the wind. The wind goes to 
all parts of the plant alike. Many kinds 
of trees in the Philippine forests, whose 
flowers are borne high up where the wind 
is sure to strike them, are wind-lovers. 

Is it better for a plant to be a wind- 
lover or an insect-lover ? We mav see 
that each way has some advantages over 
the other. If a plant is a wind-lover it 
does not have to make bright-colored 
petals to attract the insects, or sweet nectar 
for them to eat. When a plant has these 
things it means that the stems and roots 
and leaves have had a great deal of work 
to do in making them. A plant which is 
a wind-lover saves all this work. You 
must remember that flowers and fruit are 
produced bv the work of the roots and 
leaves, and those plants are most success- 



THE GUMAMELA 47 

ful which produce good fruit and many seeds with the least amount 
of work. So you may think it is better for a plant to be a wind- 
lover than an insect-lover, since much work is saved by this method. 
Vet we must remember that the wind is not so safe a messenger as 
the insects. It will not blow the pollen straight from the anthers 
to the stigmas. For every grain of pollen which safely reaches the 
stigma perhaps thousands of others are blown to other places. For 
this reason wind-lovers must produce very much more pollen than 
insect-lovers. For this reason you find in the inflorescences of the 
male flowers of pandan very great quantities of pollen. The inflor- 
escences are composed of thousands of stamens crowded close 
together. When thev are ripe you may shake showers of pollen 
from them. Perhaps it is almost as hard a task for the plant to 
make so much pollen as it is to make bright corollas and sweet 
nectar and only a little pollen. So you see that each way has some 
advantage over the other and both are good. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE GUM A M E L A 

The gumamela is a shrub. All plants may be divided into 
trees, shrubs, and herbs. The herbs are the low, weak plants which 
do not grow much higher than your waist. Shrubs or bushes are 
plants with woody stems which branch a good deal, but do not 
grow as high as trees. The gumamela is a perfect example of a shrub. 

Gumamela is perhaps the commonest garden-flower in the Phil- 
ippine Islands. It is not cultivated for its use, but for its beauty. 



4 8 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



Its large, red flowers can be seen for half a mile. Do you know any 
other flowers which can be seen from so far away ? 

The gumamela can be grown in temperate countries, but its 
flowers are never so large and beautiful as they are in the tropics. 
In the United States this flower is called hibiscus. Does the guma- 
mela bear flowers all year long? Does it produce good fruit and seed? 
If you gather a gumamela-flower and look at it carefully you 
can very easily see all the different parts. Since the flower is 

clothed with bright and beautiful 
petals you may be sure that it is 
visited by insects. What insects 
have you ever seen visiting the 
gumamela ? The first thing that 
we notice in the flower is the 
corolla. It is composed of five, 
very large, red petals. Are these 
petals united like the petals of 
a banana or are they separate ? 
The banana-flower may be called 
a closed flower, because its petals 
are closely united into a tube 
which hides the stamens and the 
pistil. But the gumamela has 
an open flower, and we can see 
the central parts even more 
plainly than we did in the pa- 
paya. Outside and under the 
red corolla may be found the 
small, green part called the calyx. The calyx is composed of five 
united sepals. Outside the calyx are several small, pointed, green 




Gumamela. 



THE GUMAMELA 



49 



leaves which are not a proper part of the flower. They are called 
bracts. 

Now if we look at the center of the flower, one, long, slender, 
red part is seen. At the top it is divided into five branches, each 
with a dark-red, little knob at the end. These little knobs are 
the stigmas of gumamela. You know already that the stigma is 
for the purpose of receiving pollen. Below the five short branches 
which carry the stigmas many stamens are seen. Each of these 
stamens has a very slender, little stem which branches out from the 
main stalk. About how many stamens do you find in one flower ? 

When the flower is ripe the top part of each little red stamen 
opens and you may see the bright yellow pollen-grains. Since the 
pollen-grains of gumamela are much 
larger than those of other plants, you 
can see each one with the naked eye 
if vou look very closelv. Each sta- 
men produces about fifty or sixty 
grains of pollen. 

Now you have found the stamens 
and the top part of the pistil, but 
where is that very important part of 
the flower that bears the young seeds, 
and after a while forms the fruit ? 

\ OU knOW that the right place tO Q ne half of the flower of gumamela. 

look for this part is at the bottom of 

the pistil. You found it there in the female flower of the papaya 
and in the banana-flower. You know that the name of this part is 
the ovary. But you can not see the ovary of the gumamela until 
you cut the flower open. If you first pull off the petals, and then 
carefully cut open the bottom of the flower, you can find the ovary. 




5o 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



It is covered by the bottom of the long, slender, red part which 
bears the stamens and the stigma-branches. This part is called the 
" column." 

If you split open the column you will find a long white thread 
inside of it. This thread connects the stigmas with the ovary. It 
is called the style. You learned about the style in studying the 
flowers of the butuhan, but the style of gumamela is very different 
from that of butuhan because it is covered by the column. This 
column is really composed of the lower parts of the stamens which 
are closely united together. You can understand these things much 
better by looking very carefully at the picture of the gumamela 
flower cut open. 

Of course there are very man}" flowers which do not have a 
" column " formed by the union of stamens and pistil. In most 
flowers these parts are separate. Yet there is a great fam- 

column-bearers " because they have the 
stamens and pistil united. These plants 
are common in the Philippines. Malvas 
and calut-calutan are common examples. 
The orumamela d'arania is another mem- 
ber of this family which is common in 
the Philippine gardens. In English this 
flower would be called the "drooping 
hibiscus." Its flowers do not seem to 
have the strength to hold themselves erect 
like the flowers of the large gumamela. The long, very slender 
column hangs straight down. The petals are much divided, so that 
they seem to form a sort of fringe. Are the leaves of the guma- 
mela d'arania different from those of the large-flowered gumamela ? 
You will have to look very carefully to make sure of this, for on 



ily of plants called 




Leaf of gumamela from near the 
bottom of a branch. 




THE GUMAMELA 51 

the gumamela it is common to find two kinds of leaves. The leaves 
at the bottom of the plant are often very different in shape from 
those at the top. 

Neither kind of gumamela produces good fruit and seed. If 
you want to plant gumamela in the garden how do you do it ? If 
the gumamela does not produce good seed you 
may wonder what the flowers are for. You 
have already learned that all parts of a plant 
have some purpose and that it is the purpose of 
flowers to produce fruit and seed. Now in the 
gumamela we have a plant which produces fine 
flowers, but does not finish the work by ripening Leaf of g u ™ amela fr ° m 

J l ° near the top of a 

the seeds. You can find in the ovary the very branch. 

young seeds, but they never become mature. 

The reason for this is that the gumamela has been cultivated 
by men for the sake of its flowers and not for the sake of its seeds. 
Rice is cultivated for its seeds and so it always produces good seeds. 
But the life of gumamela is made easy for it by keeping away all its 
enemies, and it is reproduced by cuttings which men make from the 
old plants. This is not a natural way of reproduction, but it is an 
easier way for the plant than the seed-method, so the gumamela has 
gradually lost the power of producing good seed. They are no 
longer necessary, as they were very many years ago when gumamela 
was a wild plant. But gumamela still has the habit of making very 
handsome flowers. 



52 A NATURE STUDY READER 

CHAPTER XII 

MACAHIA ; THE SHAME-PLANT 

This plant has a very good name. Every boy and girl in the 
Philippine Islands knows that when the macahia is touched with 
the hand or with a stick it bends down and closes up its leaves as 
though ashamed of itself and trying to hide. Although the maca- 
hia hangs its head as though in shame when you notice it, it must 
be a very happy plant if plants are happy when their lives are suc- 
cessful. Few plants in the Philippine Islands are more successful 
than macahia. It grows everywhere and spreads modestly, but 
rapidly, crowding out other plants. It produces fresh flowers and 
fresh fruit every day. Its seeds are very healthy and soon grow into 
young plants. In tropical countries the macahia is considered a 
troublesome weed. Plants which are troublesome to the farmer 
and crowd out the cultivated plants are called weeds. Macahia is 
one of the enemies of rice, and the rice-paddies must be kept care- 
fully cleared of it, for macahia spreads rapidly when the water stands 
low on the paddy and crowds out the rice. 

Although macahia is a wild plant in the tropics it is a very 
carefully cultivated plant in the temperate regions, where it is con- 
sidered a great curiosity. There it is called the "sensitive plant," 
because it is so sensitive to the touch. In America the macahia can 
be grown only in the conservatories because it can not live in cold 
weather. The glass-roofed conservatories are carefully heated in 
winter and kept at just the same temperature all the time, so that 
many tropical plants can be grown in them quite as well as though 
they were at home. 




Macahia. 



54 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



There are many public conservatories in the United States, and 
when people come to visit them they stop before the sensitive 
plant just as they might stop before a cage of monkeys in a museum 
of animals. Macahia is one of the few plants in the world which 
seem to be able to move themselves when touched, and people 
who have never seen it before are very much interested in seeing: 
the way it behaves. 

Macahia may be called a creeping herb. Its leaves are com- 
pound leaves. A compound leaf is one that is divided into many 
small leaves, which are called leaflets. You can plainly see that the 
leaf of macahia is composed of many pairs of small leaflets. How 
many pairs of leaflets do you usually find in one leaf ? The acacia- 
tree is another common Philippine plant which has compound 
leaves. The acacia and macahia belong to the same family of 
plants, though one is a large tree and the other a small and modest 
herb. They seem to be very different, yet if you compare the 

flowers and the fruits and the leaves of these two 
plants you will see that in many ways they are 
much alike. At least they are near enough alike 
to be called cousins. 

The fruit of the macahia and the fruit of the 
acacia are both pod-fruits. A pod is a long, 
narrow fruit which has seeds in one or two rows 
and opens by splitting down the middle. The 
dap-dap and the Spanish flag are two other com- 
mon plants that have pod-fruits. All plants that 
have pod-fruits belong to' the same great family. 
This family is a very successful one in the Philip- 
pines. The most valuable timber-trees in the Islands belong to 
this family. It is called Leguminosae. Legume means pod. 




Fruit of macahia. 




One flower of 
macahia. 



MACAHIA; THE SHAME-PLANT 55 

The flowers of macahia are fresh and pretty every morning, 
but when afternoon comes they have faded in the hot sun. If 
you want to examine them you must be sure to go out in the 
morning. Macahia seems to have a round, pink flower, but when 
you pick it and look closely you will see that this round, pink part 
is composed of very many small flowers. If you gather 
macahia flowers before ten o'clock you will find a small 
white body at the end of each of the slender pink rays 
which come out from the flowers. These slender pink 
rays are the stamens and the white bodies at the ends 
are the anthers which contain the pollen. Now if you 
want to find the tiny corollas of macahia you will have 
to pull one of the clusters of flowers apart and look 
very closely. You learned from banana that a cluster of 
flowers growing close together as in macahia is called 
an inflorescence. The flowers of acacia also form an inflorescence. 
If you carefully separate the small flowers which form the 
inflorescence of macahia you will find that the corolla of each tiny 
flower is not more than an eighth of an inch long. 
The petals are united. Four stamens and a long, 
slender pistil seem to come from each flower. The 
tiny flowers of macahia are crowded so closely 
together in the inflorescences that there is not 
room for a pod to be developed from the ovary of 
each one of them. Perhaps there are fifty flowers 
in one inflorescence, yet you rarely find more than 
eight or ten pods in a single cluster. If you watch 
a macahia inflorescence from the time it is very 
young until the ripe fruits are formed, you can see how some of the 
pods seem to get a start on the others and soon crowd them out. 




Flower of macahia 
cut open. 



56 A NATURE STUDY READER 

You can do this by very gently tying a piece of thread just behind 
a young macahia inflorescence so that you will be able to recognize 
it the next day. How many days do you sup;; :_ ; e i; :ike= ::r r::e 
pods to be formed from the inflorescences t ' ' :>u would be sur- 
prised to find how quickly this is done. Of course it is the flowers 
whose stigmas are the first ones to be pollinated which are the ones 
to get the start in developing the pods. So all the little flowers of 
macahia are trying to get the pollen on their stigmas as soon as 
possible. The stigmas are very small, but since all the flowers are 
very close together some pollen is almost sure to be carried from 
one flower to another. What insects have vou ever seen visiting 
the flowers of macahia ? Do you. think it is an insect4over or a 
wind-lover ? 

The pods of macahia have many slender spines upon them. 
Can you think of any way in which these spines help to scatter the 
seeds ? 



CHAPTER XIII 

ABOUT RICE 

Wheat is the most important food-plant in the United States 
Millions of dollars' worth of wheat is grown in the United State 
each year and much of it is sold to people of other countries. Ye 
wheat is not so important to the people of the United States is ric 
to the Filipino people. There are many other common plant 
which are used for food in the United States so that if the wheat 
crop should fail there would be many other things to eat. Bu 
when the rice-crop fails in the Philippine Islands there is mud 



ABOUT RICE 57 

suffering and hunger. There are many other plants which are good 
for food, but the farmers do not grow enough of them to supply 
food for all the people. Much corn or maize is grown in some 
parts of the Islands and used by the people for food instead of rice, 
but the corn-crop is only large enough to supply the people who 
live where it grows. 

Not many years ago when the rice-crop failed many Filipinos 
starved to death. Many people had to live on the seeds of a kind 
of common grass which you call amor-seco. The seeds of amor- 
seco are very small and hard and not good for food, but they kept 
many people from starvation. 

It is pleasant to think that such a thing could not happen in the 
Philippine Islands in these days. When the rice-crop fails the Gov- 
ernment is ready to buy rice in other countries and sell it to 
the people for what it costs. The Government did this in 1902, 
when there was a very small rice-crop on account of the death of 
nearly all the carabao. The Government also keeps large quanti- 
ties of rice stored up so that it can be quickly distributed if there 
is danger of a famine. When there is not enough for people to eat, 
it is said that there is a famine. 

There should never be a famine in the Philippine Islands, for 
no country in the world is better for the growing of food-plants. 
The Filipino people should not only grow enough rice for their own 
use, but they should grow enough besides to sell great quantities 
to the people of neighboring countries, just as the farmers of 
America sell much of their wheat to Europe and receive a great 
deal of money for it. 

There is a far better way of preventing a rice-famine than by 
buying rice and storing it up, or by sending to other countries for 
it. This way is to learn carefully about the best methods of rice- 




Three common kinds of Philippine rice. 



ABOUT RICE 59 

cultivation and then to use them upon the rice-farms of the Philip- 
pines. When the Filipino farmers grow their rice in the best way, 
and have American machinery to help them in the cultivation, there 
will be very little danger of a famine unless all the carabao die. 

There are many kinds of rice in the Philippine Islands. In the 
picture you may see three kinds which are common. Some of the 
kinds are much better for food than others, and it is important to be 
sure that the seed which is sown is the seed of the best kinds. 

Rice belongs to the same family of plants as the common grass, 
and yet, as every Filipino boy knows, the grass is one of the worst 
enemies of rice. Whenever the water gets low on the rice paddies 
the grass begins to grow and crowd out the rice. If there is plenty 
of water on the paddy the grass can not grow as well as the rice, for 
the rice is a water-lover, but much water kills the grass. Another 
enemy of rice is the common field-mouse which eats it at the bottom 
whenever the field is too dry. So it is easy to see that the most im- 
portant thing in growing rice is to have plenty of water. 

Since it is important to have plenty of water standing on the 
rice while it grows, the best rice-land is very flat. The more the 
land slopes, the quicker the water runs off, and it is necessary to 
have the pilapil very close together to hold the water. What you 
call pilapil in the Philippine Islands are called dikes or levees in 
America. In Louisiana and Texas much rice is grown on very flat 
land, so the dikes can be built far apart. When the dikes are far 
apart it is much easier to use machinery in cultivating and harvest- 
ing the crop. This is another reason why flat land is much better 
than sloping land for the growing of rice. 

The flowers of the rice-plant are very small and grow close 
together. Thev form an inflorescence, as in macahia. But the 
flowers of rice are quite different from those of macahia. They do 



:•: 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



not have any bright-colored petals. They do not attract the insects. 
But if you look carefully at the inflorescence of rice when the flowers 
are ripe you can find the stamens and the stigmas. The stamens 
produce a great deal of pollen. The stigmas are very large for such 
a small flower. From these things we may know that the pollen of 








T- 



::-;- ::.t r::e ::r.e. 



rice is transferred by the wind, like the pollen of pandan. The rice 
is a wind-lover. 

The leaves of rice are very different from the leaves of any other 
plant you have studied. They are long and narrow, like leaves of 



RICE-CULTIVATION 6l 

grass. If you hold a leaf of rice or a leaf of grass up to the light 
you may see many fine lines in the leaf which are not so green as the 
rest of the leaf. These are the veins. In the leaves of banana, rice, 
grass, pandan, and many other common plants the veins of the leaves 
are all in the same direction or nearly so. They are called parallel- 
veined leaves. Many plants have leaves whose veins run in many 
directions, like the strings in the nets of the fishermen. Such leaves 
are said to be netted-veined. Do you find more leaves which are 
parallel-veined or more which are netted-veined ? 

The leaves of rice and grass point nearly straight to the sky. 
They do not seem to be getting all the sunlight they might get if 
their leaves had the position of the leaves of papaya. The sun 
shines directly upon the leaves of papaya. It shines obliquely upon 
the leaves of rice. So you see that rice, like pandan, seems to be 
afraid of getting too much heat and light. 



CHAPTER XIV 

RICE-CULTIVATION 

The cultivation of rice in the Philippines is very different from 
what it is in America. Texas and Louisiana are the two great rice- 
producing States of the United States. In these States a man who 
works in the rice-fields is paid about two hundred dollars in Amer- 
ican money each year, besides his board. The Filipino workman 
does not get nearly so much money each year. Neither does he 
produce nearly so much rice as the American workman. This is 
chiefly because the American workman uses machinery which the 



62 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



Filipino does not have. One American workman with the aid of 
his machinery can take care of about eighty acres of land each year, 
and get from it about one hundred and sixty thousand pounds of 
unthreshed rice. The Filipino workman can take care of only 
about three acres of land from which he gets about fifteen hundred 
pounds of unthreshed rice. So you see that the owner of the land 
can well afford to pay his workmen nearly ten times as much as the 
Filipino workmen get, for, with the help of machinery, they pro- 
duce nearly a hundred times as much rice. 

In the Islands we have lowland and upland rice. What native 
names do you give to these two kinds of rice ? Probably every 
Filipino boy or girl knows that the best time to begin to cultivate 
lowland rice, which is the common kind, is in June or July. Before 
the rice is planted, the land must be very well plowed and har- 
rowed. In America the plowing is done by gang-plows. These 
are plows which make three or four furrows at a time, and so do the 

work more rapidly 
than single plows. 
Mules pull these 
plows instead • of 
carabao, and they go 
much faster. Six 
or eight mules are 
fastened to one 
gang-plow. In the 
Philippine Islands 
Gang-plow. it is common to put 

the seed-rice into a 
part of the land called the punlaan late in the month of July. In 
August the young plants are carefully pulled up, their tops cut off, 




RICE-CULTIVATION 



63 




and they are placed in the fields where they are to grow and bear 
seed. This is called transplanting. 

Now in America the rice is not transplanted. It is sowed from 
a machine called the seed-drill. The seed-drill plants the rice-seeds 
in just the right amount 
and just the right dis- 
tance from each other, 
and does the work much 
more quickly than it 
could be done by hand. 

The largest and 
finest machines which 
are used in America in 
the cultivation of rice 
are the machines for har- 
vesting and threshing. 
With the use of a machine which reaps and binds the rice at the 
same time, one man with the help of six mules can harvest from 
eight to twelve acres of rice in a day. It is very easy for you to 
see, however, that such a machine would not be a good thing to use 
upon rice-land where the pilapil or dikes are close together. The 
use of such a machine is practicable only in very flat land where the 
pilapil are far apart. Since the pilapil are only about sixty feet 
apart in most of the rice-fields of the Philippines it would not be 
worth while to use such a harvesting-machine. 

The threshing-machine can be used no matter how close 
together the pilapil are, for the unthreshed rice is all brought to the 
machine. A large machine can thresh fifty thousand pounds of rice 
in a day, so you see that one machine could do all the work for 
many farmers. In America the owner of a threshing-machine takes 



Drill for planting seed. 



64 A NATURE STUDY READER 

it around from one farm to another and the farmer pays him for 
threshing his rice. Sometimes threshing-machines earn sixty or 
seventy dollars in American money in one day. .Such a machine, 



Machine for threshing rice. 

and the engine which runs it, costs about twelve hundred dollars 
when it is new. They would be very useful in the Philippine 
Islands. 

The engine which you see in the picture is not used only to run 
the threshing-machine. It is also used to pull the threshing-machine 
over the country roads from farm to farm, for the machine is very 
large and heavy. In the picture of the threshing-machine you see 
on the right a long funnel. From the end of this funnel the rice- 
straw escapes and is piled up in a stack. This straw can be used to 
make the fire which runs the engine. The place for " feeding " 
unthreshed rice into the machine is at the upper left-hand corner of 
the picture. The threshed rice comes out at the bottom, near one 
of the larger wheels. There is a very important part which is not 
all shown in the picture. You may see one end of it on the left 
side of the picture. This part is the broad leather strap or belt 



RICE-CULTIVATION 



65 



which connects with the engine. The engine is placed about one 
hundred feet away from the threshing-machine so that there will 
be no danger that the sparks from it will set fire to the rice. The 
other end of the belt passes around a wheel on the engine, so that, 
when the engine turns this wheel, the wheels of the threshing- 
machine are also turned. In the same way, when you ride a 
bicycle, the energy of your legs turns a small wheel, and the turning 
of that small wheel causes the hind wheel of the bicycle to turn at 
the same time, for these 
wheels are connected 
by a chain. The chain 
carries the energy of 
your leo;s to the hind 
wheel. 

You have learned 
that it is the threshing- 




machine which does the 
work of threshing the 
rice. You have learned 
that it is the steam-en- 
gine which gives the 
energy for doing this 
work. The energy of 
a steam-engine comes 
from the heat of a fire 

which changes water into steam. You have learned that it is the 
belt which carries the energy of the steam-engine to the threshing- 
machine. You know that the unthreshed rice is the material upon 
which this work is to be done. You know that threshed rice is the 
finished product of this work. 



Portable steam-engine. 



66 A NATURE STUDY READER 

Now if you understand this outline of the work of a threshing- 
machine, it will help you very much in understanding the next 
chapter, which is about the work of green leaves. The work of 
green leaves may be very well compared with the work of a thresh- 
ing-machine. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE WORK OF GREEX LEAVES 

The work of green leaves is one of the most important kinds 
of work done in the world. It is more important than the work 
men do in building houses, or in making roads, or even in working 
on their farms. All these are kinds of work which make our life 
easier and more comfortable, but if the work of green leaves were 
to stop our lives themselves would stop. Without the work of green 
leaves all the work of the farmer would be in vain. He would never 
get a crop. The work of green leaves is not the making of food for 
the plants alone. It is the work of making food for all the world. 
Could any work be more important than this ? 

This is a work which nothing else in the world can do except 
green leaves. Men have invented wonderful machinery which can 
do wonderful things. Men can build engines which travel more 
than one hundred miles an hour. Men can send messages around 
the world in a few minutes. They can send messages through the 
air for hundreds of miles without even a wire between the place 
from which the message is sent and the place where it is received. 
But nothing in all the wonderful inventions of men is able to do 
the work of a green leaf. The machinery which is at work in a 



THE WORK OF GREEN LEAVES 67 

green leaf when the sun is shining on it is more delicate and more 
wonderful than any of the inventions of men. It is the only 
machinery in the world which is able to receive things from the 
soil and things from the air and out of these things make food 
which is good food for plants and animals alike. 

Can vou understand how it is that all our food and all the food 
of animals comes from the work of green leaves ? We eat the 
seeds of rice, but it is in the leaves of rice that the food which is 
stored up in the rice-seed was made. In the same way all the nour- 
ishment which is in fruits comes from the work of the leaves. If 
you cut off all the leaves of the mango-tree, do you think the 
mango-tree will bear fruit ? We eat the flesh of cattle and of hogs, 
but do not cattle and hogs get their food from plants ? We use 
fish for food, and perhaps you can not so easily understand how the 
food of fish comes from the work of plants, but it is true. The 
large fish eat small fish, and the small fish eat smaller fish, and the 
smallest fish of all get their food from the millions and millions of 
very small plants which live in the water. Many of these plants 
are too small for the eye to see. So, wherever you get your food, 
you may be sure that it has come in the first place from the work 
of plants ; work like that which goes on in the green leaves all 
around us. 

It is very fortunate for men that the leaves make more than 
enough food for the plants alone. If the plants died when we take 
food from them, there would very soon be none left, but the green 
leaves produce enough food to keep the plants alive, and all the 
world of animals besides. We may say, then, that men and animals 
live on the surplus of food produced by green leaves. 

You have already learned that the materials out of which the 
green leaves make food for the plant come from the soil and the 



68 A NATURE STUDY READER 

air. In studying about papaya you learned that the little root is 
the first part of the young papaya to begin work, and that its work 
is to find in the soil the things out of which the leaves can make 
food, and have them all ready for the leaf when it has unfolded in 
the sunlight. The material which the roots get from the soil is like 
the unthreshed rice which is fed to the threshing-machine. The 
material from the soil passes along the stems and is fed to the 
machinery of the leaves. 

We must next understand where the energy comes from to run 
the delicate machinery of the leaf and make food out of the mate- 
rials of the soil and the air. Have you ever noticed that green 
leaves can not live without sunlight ? If you put a board upon the 
grass and lift it up after a few days you may see that all the grass 
has turned yellow. It has lost its green color and has begun to die. 
We may be sure from this that the green color of leaves has some- 
thing very important to do with the light. When a plant is grow- 
ing inside of a house its leaves turn toward the window. They 
seem to be trying to reach the light. Now if you should take a 
piece of black paper and fasten it very gently to the surface of a 
large, green leaf, so that it would not injure the leaf, you could 
prove that without the light no food is made in the leaf. Light 
can not pass through the black paper. If the plant is in the sunlight 
all day long there will be a good deal of food made in the leaves, 
but you will find that under the part which was covered by the 
black paper no food has been made at all. When you study botany 
you will learn how we may examine leaves to see what parts con- 
tain food and what parts do not, but even now you can understand 
how we may prove that without light no food is made in the leaves. 
Also, you understand that the first thing which happens to green 
leaves when they are in the dark is that the green color all disap- 



THE LANTANA 69 

pears. So you know that the green color of plants can not do its 
work without sunlight. When the light does not shine upon it, it 
soon disappears. This green substance in plants is called chloro- 
phyll, a word which means leaf-green. The chlorophyll has a very 
important part to do in the work of making plant-food. 

You have learned that food is made only while the light is 
shining on the leaves. It is the light of the sun which gives the 
energy for doing this work. The sunlight is like the steam-engine 
which gives the energy for running the threshing-machine. It is 
the chlorophyll or green substance in leaves which catches the light 
of the sun and carries the energy of sunlight to the delicate machin- 
ery of the leaf. It is like the belt which carries the energy of the 
steam-engine to the threshing-machine. The chlorophyll does not 
do the work itself, but without the chlorophyll and without the sun- 
light the delicate living machinery of the leaf would be quite unable 
to do the work of making food. Just so the threshing-machine 
would be quite unable to do the work of threshing rice without 
the belt and the steam-engine. Just so a bicycle can not run with- 
out the energy of your legs and a chain to carry that energy to the 
hind-wheel. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE LANTANA 



The lantana is a shrub which is common in the Philippine 
Islands and in many other parts of the world. It is a very success- 
ful plant, spreading rapidly wherever it begins to grow unless it is 
carefully cut out. It is not a plant which has any plant-products 



70 A NATURE STUDY READER 

which are valuable to man, and in some parts of the world it is one 
of the worst enemies of the farmer. In the Hawaiian Islands the 
farmers would give many thousands of dollars if there were no 
lantana growing on their farms, for it crowds out and kills many 
valuable plants. In the Philippine Islands the lantana is not so 
common as it is in the Hawaiian Islands, yet there is danger that it 
may become so common that it will cause much loss to the farmers. 
The lantana is a plant which it is very well to kill. Its seeds are 
scattered everywhere by the birds, so that it spreads rapidly from 
place to place. 

Although the lantana is a very troublesome plant for the 
farmer, it is a very convenient plant to use in learning about the 
structure of flowers and the way in which seeds are scattered. In 
the picture you can see the little, round fruits of lantana which 
grow in a close cluster, and when they are quite ripe they become 
black and juicy. Many kinds of birds are very fond of eating the 
little fruits or berries of lantana. In the center of each little fruit 
is one hard seed, and when the bird eats the fruit it also swallows 
the seed. It does not injure the seed of lantana to be eaten by 
birds. The birds fly away and after a while the seed is passed from 
their bodies, and if it falls in a good place it soon begins to grow 
into a young lantana-plant. 

You may always tell a lantana-plant by its pink and orange- 
colored flowers which grow close together in a group or inflores- 
cence. The leaves are stiff and hairy. If you look on their under 
side you can see the veins very plainly. They are very delicate and 
beautiful. Is it a netted-veined leaf like the leaf of papaya or a 
parallel-veined leaf like the leaf of rice or of banana ? 

The leaves are arranged upon the stem in a very regular way. 
They are in pairs, each leaf with another leaf just across from it on 




Lantana. 



72 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



the other side of the stem. When leaves are arranged like this they 
are said to be opposite. Do you know any other plants whose 
leaves are opposite ? 

Many people think that the lantana has an unpleasant odor, but 
it is not a strong odor and should not keep you from looking at it 
very carefully. Many people call it the cemetery-plant, because it 
is nearly always to be found in cemeteries. 

You have already learned that the lantana uses the birds to 
scatter its seeds. If you watch a lantana for a little while on a sunny 
day you are almost certain to see many small, yellow butterflies 

flying from one flower to another. 
The lantana uses these butterflies to 
carry its pollen from one flower to 
another. Just as we called the pan- 
dan a wind-lover, we may call the 
lantana a butterfly-lover. 

Now let us look carefully at the 
flowers of lantana and see whether we 
can learn how the butterfly gets the 
pollen. We find that the little pink 
petals of each lantana-flower are united 
together to form a tube. There are 
four of these petals and they are not 
all the same size. Two are larger 
than the other two. If we open one 
of the tubes of the little flower we 
may see that the stamens are fastened 
to the inside and that they are about 
half-way between the bottom and the top. How do you suppose 
the butterfly reaches them ? Certainly he can not enter the tube, 






Lantana flower. 

Front view, showing irregular shape of corolla. 
2. Side view. 3. Corolla tube cut open, show- 
ing position of stamens. 4. Calyx and pistil. 



THE LANTANA 73 

for at the top it is hardly large enough to let an ant enter. To 
answer this question we must first catch a butterfly. You can do 
this easily with your hat. Then, if you hold the butterfly very care- 
fully and look on the under side of its head, you will find in the 
place where the mouth ought to be something which is rolled up 
tightly. This is the very peculiar tongue of the butterfly. When 
it is unrolled it is almost as long as the butterfly's body. With 
the point of a pin you can carefully unroll the tongue of the butter- 
fly and you will find that it is almost exactly as long as the corolla- 
tube of the lantana-flower. Now you see how the butterfly reaches 
the pollen. 

But is it for the pollen alone that the butterfly visits the 
lantana ? Why should the butterflies spend their time in carrying 
pollen from one flower to another if they get nothing for it ? If 
they eat the pollen then they are the enemies of the flowers and not 
their helpers. If the butterflies go to the lantana-flowers only 
to get pollen, then why should their tongues be long enough to 
reach to the bottom of the tube when the pollen is only half-way 
down ? 

There is one answer for both these questions. The butterflies 
do not carry pollen from one lantana-flower to another for nothing. 
They are the servants of the lantana and do this work for them, but 
they get well paid for it. The flowers pay them by giving them 
plenty of nectar. The nectar is at the bottom of the corolla-tubes, 
so that the tongue of the butterfly must be as long as the tube or it 
could not reach it. While the tongue is reaching for the nectar it 
must always rub against the stamens and the top of the little pistil 
which is just beneath the stamens. So, while the butterfly is get- 
ting its food, it is certain to carry the pollen of one flower to the 

pistil of another and this is just what the flowers want. 

11 



74 A NATURE STUDY READER 

If you pull off the corolla-tube of lantana and hold it upside 
down, when you squeeze it you will see a little drop come out of 
the lower end of the tube, unless the butterfly has already visited 
the flower and taken this sweet drop away. This drop is the nectar. 



CHAPTER XVII 

PANDACAQUI 

The pandacaqui is another shrub. It is sometimes just about 
the size of lantana, but usually it is larger. Its stems are more 
woody than the stems of lantana. 

Pandacaqui is common in nearly all parts of the Islands. After 
you have once learned to know it, you can always tell it by the 
bright white flowers. The petals are united into a tube just like 
the petals of lantana, but there are five of them instead of four, and 
they are much larger. The flowers do not grow quite so close to- 
gether as the flowers of lantana, and the petals are all the same size. 
Only two or three of the flowers in an inflorescence of pandacaqui 
are in bloom at the same time. 

This plant has one thing which is quite different from any plant 
you have yet studied. If you break the young stem a white juice, 
like milk, comes from the broken end. This white juice is very 
sticky and after a little while it becomes hard. There are some 
trees which grow in the Philippine forests which have a milky juice 
like pandacaqui. Rubber and gutta-percha are made from a milk) 
juice which looks much like the juice of pandacaqui when it first 
runs out of the trees. The natives cut the steins of these trees with 




Pandacaqui. 



j6 A NATURE STUDY READER 

their bolos, and after the juice has run out and become hard it may 
be taken away and sold for a good price. Have you ever seen any 
trees whose stems are cut with bolos in this way ? Why do men 
cut the stems of mango-trees with their bolos ? 

Do you find that the leaves of pandacaqui are much like the 
leaves of lantana ? Are they arranged in the same way on the 
stem ? Are the veins parallel or like a net ? 

There are many animals which use the leaves of plants for food. 
How many kinds of animals have you ever seen eating the leaves of 
plants? Of course the animals which eat the leaves of plants are 
enemies and the plants must try to protect themselves as well as 
they can. The grass protects itself from being all destroyed by the 
horses and the cattle by being able to grow up again very rapidly 
after the leaves have been eaten. It does not kill the grass to have 
its leaves eaten down. Very soon new ones are put up from the 

roots. 

There are other plants, like lantana and pandacaqui, which must 
protect themselves in other ways from the leaf-eating animals, for if 
their leaves were all destroyed they would soon die. How do you 
think the leaves of these plants' are protected ? 

Some of the very worst of leaf-eating animals are different 
kinds of insects. In tropical America the ants often eat all the 
leaves off a large tree in one day. Now the leaves of lantana are 
well protected both from leaf-eating insects and larger leaf-eating 
animals like horses. After you have once rubbed your hands on 
them you can understand why horses and cattle and even insects do 
not care about them for food. They are hard and tough, and are 
covered with stiff, little hairs. This is one of the reasons why lan- 
tana is such a successful plant. The leaves of pandacaqui are not 
so well protected as the leaves of lantana, and perhaps this is a rea- 



PANDACAQUI 77 

son why it does not spread so rapidly. The leaves of pandacaqui 
are smooth and rather soft, but they are protected by the milky 
juice which is in them. The milky juice gives them a very bad 
taste. Many other kinds of plants are protected from the leaf -eat- 
ing animals by having in them juices which either taste very badly 
or else are poisonous. Animals are able to tell which plants are 
poisonous and which are not much better than men can. 

The pandacaqui has a very peculiar flower and a very peculiar 
fruit. The petals of the flower always look as though they had been 
twisted. They are all the same size, 
but they are not straight like the 
petals of other flowers. If you cut 
through the bud or very young flower 
of pandacaqui you may see how the 
petals are closely twisted together 
before the flower opens. 

The opening of the corolla-tube 
of pandacaqui is even smaller than 
that of lantana, and around the edge 
of it you may see a hard little rim, 
like the curb around the top of a 

well. The stamens of pandacaqui have sharp points, and you will 
find them about one-third of the way down the tube. Have you 
ever seen butterflies visiting the flowers of pandacaqui ? When you 
cut open the twisted tube of the flower you will find that the stigma 
is very close to the pollen-sacs or anthers. From this we may think 
that pandacaqui does not have cross-pollination like lantana, but 
that the pollen falls on the stigma of the same flower. 

The fruit of pandacaqui is even more peculiar than the flower. 
If you pull to pieces one of the flowers you will find at the bottom 




Pandacaqui flower, 
i. Flower cut open. 2. Front view. 



7% A NATURE STUDY READER 

the little green ovary which is to become the fruit. It seems to 
have just one part, but, after the work of the flower is done and it 
has fallen off, this ovary begins to separate into two distinct parts 
which bend away from each other. You can see this plainly in the 
pictures. Each of these parts has the shape of a crescent, like the 
moon when it is young. They bend farther and farther apart as 
they grow larger, so that when the fruit is ripe there seem to be two 
very distinct fruits, which have come from one ovary. 

When the fruit of pandacaqui is ripe it changes its color from 
green to red. Can you think why it does this ? How do you 
think the seeds of pandacaqui are scattered ? When the fruit bursts 
open the seeds are very easily seen, for they have a different color 
from the rest of the fruit. Do you know what this color is ? 

You should understand very well why it is necessary for seeds 
to be scattered. All the successful plants have very good ways of 
scattering their seeds. No matter how many good seeds a plant 
might produce, they would do very little good if they all fell to the 
ground beneath the plant which produced them. There would not 
be room for more than a very few of them to grow up into good 
plants. 



CHAPTER XYIII 

ILANG— ILANG 



Of all the flowers in the Islands the ilang-ilang has the sweetest 
odor. There is no flower which gives greater pleasure to the Filipino 
people than ilang-ilang. It gives profit as well as pleasure, for from the 
extract or essence of the flowers valuable perfumes are made. This 



ILANG-ILANG 79 

essence of the ilang-ilang is one of the most valuable plant-products 
in the world. From about seventy-five pounds of flowers one pound 
of the best ilang-ilang essence is obtained, and this first quality of 
essence is worth about forty dollars, gold. 

The ilang-ilang is a good-sized tree with rather large, smooth 
leaves. It is often grown as a shade-tree for cacao-plants. A farm 
which has good cacao-trees and good ilang-ilang-trees growing 
together should be very profitable. 

You will find that the flowers of ilang-ilang have a structure 
which is very different from any flowers you have yet studied. Yet, 
like all other flowers in the world, the purpose of the ilang-ilang- 
flower is to produce good fruit and seeds. It is like a different 
invention to do the same kind of work. 

The outermost part of the flower is called the calyx. You can 
see it best when you turn the flower upside down. Then you can 
see three, short, thick leaves which are triangular in shape. These 
leaves form the calyx. The calyx is for the purpose of protecting 
the very young flower, or bud. 

Perhaps the most interesting as well as the most valuable part 
of the flower is the corolla. It is from the corolla that the valuable 
essence of ilang-ilang is made. The corolla consists of six long and 
narrow petals which have a greenish-yellow color. It is quite 
peculiar that the bud opens while these petals are quite short. They 
gradually increase in length until they have about the shape of a 
wide strap. You may see quite plainly that the petals are arranged 
in two different sets or whorls, three in each, one whorl outside 
the other. A whorl is a set of parts of a plant, either leaves or 
flower-parts, which is arranged in a ring around the stem. Many 
plants have their leaves arranged in whorls. In the common kind 
of ilang-ilang the three petals of the inner whorl are marked by red 




Ilang-iiang. 



ILANG-ILANG 



8l 




stripes at the bottom. Can you find these stripes ? They seem to 
be for the purpose of guiding the visiting insect to the place where 
the nectar may be found, and where he will be sure to get some 
of the pollen on his body. They are called nectar-guides. 

Do you think that if you had plenty of ilang-ilang-flowers you 
would know how to get the valuable essence out of the petals ? 
Perhaps you have seen how this is done, 
although you may not understand it. You 
know that when water is very hot it begins to 
boil, and presently it passes into the air as 
steam. You know that if you hold some- 
thing cold, like the blade of a knife, in the 
little cloud of steam presently you will see 
drops of water forming on it. The cool sur- 
face of the knife changes the steam, which is 
a kind of gas, back into a liquid again. This 
process of changing a liquid into a gas and 

then changing it back to a liquid again is called distillation. The 
water which collects on your knife-blade when you hold it in a 
cloud of steam is distilled water. 

The valuable essence of ilang-ilang is obtained by this same 
process of distillation. The essence is in the petals in liquid form, 
but if you tried to get it out by crushing the flowers you would get 
it mixed with other liquids which spoil its value. But when you 
heat the flowers the most fragrant essence is the first to be changed 
into a gas. Different kinds of liquids are changed to gas by dif- 
ferent amounts of heat. Since the best essence of ilang-ilang is 
changed to gas by less heat than the other kinds of liquids in the 
flower this is a way by which we may separate it from them. So 
when a man is trying to get the best essence of ilang-ilang he must 



Flower of ilang ilang, 
showing nectar-guides. 



82 A NATURE STUDY READER 

be careful to collect the first gas which comes from heating the 
flowers, and keep it separate from the rest. When this gas touches 
a cold surface it changes to drops of liquid, and these first drops are 
the best distilled essence of ilang-ilang. 

Now the parts of the ilang-ilang-flowers which are most dif- 
ferent from the flower-parts you have already studied are not the 
most valuable parts to man, but they are the most important parts 
to the flower. They are the parts which are necessary for the 
making of the fruit and seeds, and you already know that the sweet 
fragrance of the flower is only to help them do their work. These 
necessary parts are in the very center of the flower. When vou 
first look at them you see nothing which looks like stamens, and 
nothing which looks like a pistil. Yet you know that if the flower 
makes good fruit and seed these parts must be there. 

The part of the flower inside of the corolla has the shape of a 
triangle. In the center of this triangle there is a round, green part, 
like a small button. Do you find that part ? If you take a sharp 
knife and cut through the very center of a mature flower, right 
through the little green button, you will have a view of the flower 
which will help you to understand its parts. In the picture of this 
view of the flower you may see that the parts to right and left of 
the center contain very small grains, which are just dots in the pic- 
ture. You can see them better, perhaps, if you cut open a real flower. 
These dots are the grains of pollen. The stamens which contain 
them are very different from any stamens you have yet studied. 
The flower of ilang-ilang contains more than a hundred stamens. 

In the very center of the flower you find other small round 
bodies, a little larger than the grains of pollen. These are the ovules 
or very young seeds. The ovules are not contained in a single part, 
as in all the other flowers you have studied, but there seem to be about 



CACAO 



83 



fifteen very small parts, each one of which contains a number of 
ovules. These small parts unite at the top to form the green button 
you have already seen. Each of these parts is called a "carpel." In 
all the flowers which you have already 
studied the carpels have been united 
into one part, which we have called the 
pistil, but there are a few flowers, like 
ilang-ilang, in which the carpels are 
separate. Just as we say that the co- 
rolla is composed of petals, and the 
calyx composed of sepals, we may say 
that the pistil is composed of carpels, 
although these carpels are usually so 
closely united that they seem to form 

a single part, as in the lantana and pandacaqui which you have 
just studied. 




Flower of ilang-ilang cut open, 
showing the many stamens and 
carpels. 



CHAPTER XIX 



CACAO 



Have you ever known a boy or girl who does not like choco- 
late ? If Filipino boys and girls do not like it they are very different 
from the young people of America. Chocolate candy and choco- 
late ice-cream are two of the things most precious to the appetites of 
American children. A boy or girl who does not like them would 
be as hard to find in America as a cacao-tree itself. 

No doubt you know that chocolate comes from the cacao-tree 
and that this tree grows in the Philippine Islands. Perhaps you do 



84 A NATURE STUDY READER 

not know that it never grows in the countries of temperate regions. 
This is one of the reasons why chocolate is so valuable. It is used 
all over the world, yet it can be produced in only a small part of the 
world. 

Cacao is one of the^ most important economic plants of the 
Islands. Economic plants are those whose products have a money- 
value. The value of the product of one good cacao-plant is some- 
times as much as four or five dollars in Philippine money in one year. 
This is one of the plants which should be cultivated much more than 
it is to-day. Its cultivation is not difficult, and some of the best 
places in the world for growing it are to be found in the Philippines. 

The cacao is a small tree with rather large leaves. Its leaves 
and stems are much like the leaves and stems of other trees, but its 
flowers and fruit are very different. The tree carries them in a 
peculiar manner. The flowers of most trees are borne upon special 
stems which come from the ends of the branches, but the flowers of 
cacao are not to be found at the ends of the branches. You will 
find them upon the rough coat or bark of the branches, and even 
upon the main stem or trunk of the tree. It seems quite strange 
to find the delicate pink and white flowers of cacao fastened directly 
to the rough bark. This is an arrangement of the flowers which 
is never seen upon the trees of temperate regions, although it is not 
uncommon in the tropics. Do you know any other trees which 
bear their flowers and fruit on the bark ? 

It would not be difficult for you to understand why flowers 
sometimes grow from the bark of tropical trees, but never from the 
bark of the trees of temperate regions, if you could see the bark of 
these two kinds of trees side by side. The bark of trees which grow 
in tropical countries is usually quite soft and smooth, while the bark 
of trees which grow where winter comes is nearly always thick and 



86 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



heavy. Can you see the reason for this ? Now when flowers are 
borne on the bark, it is necessary for the delicate little branch which 
carries them to first push its way through the bark. It can not do 
this when the bark is thick and tough. 

If the cacao-tree grows near your home you should certainly get 
some of the flowers and fruit and examine them carefully. No 
flowers are more graceful and pretty than the little flowers of cacao. 
On the right side of the picture the flower is drawn, enlarged to 
about three times it's natural size. The five straight and pointed 
parts at the bottom are the sepals. The form of the petals you can 
see best in the picture of half of the flower. On the left side of 
the picture you may see very plainly the shape of one of these 
gracefully curved parts. Now can you see that there is something 
which bends over from near the center of the flower and seems to 

be fastened to the middle of the curved petal ? 
That is one of the stamens. Each of the 
petals has a rounded, hood-like part in the 
center, and each of them seems to be holding 
down the head of one of the 
stamens. The five stamens which 
stand up so straight, and are 
pointed, seem to be more for dec- 
oration than for use, for these 
stamens carry no pollen. You 
Flowers of cacao. can plainly see that there are no 

pollen-sacs or anthers at the ends 
of them. But each of the five curved stamens, which seem to hide 
their heads in the petal-hoods, carries good pollen. 

Cacao loves plenty of heat, a good deal of shade and water, a 
deep soil, and as little wind as possible. It should not be grown very 




CACAO 87 

near the sea. Some of the valleys of the Islands, sheltered from 
the winds of the coasts, and with a good deal of moisture the year 
round, are ideal places for cacao. It is better to grow it on flat 
land than on the slopes. The best places seem to be in Mindanao 
and the Visayas, yet there are many excellent places in the shel- 
tered valleys of Luzon. Many good cacao-trees are in Pasay, near 
Manila. 

The cacao may be planted close together, for it does not need 
much light, and it loves to "swelter in its own heat," like people in 
a crowd. You can always tell when the fruit is ripe by the pleasant 
odor of chocolate which comes from it then. There are two or three 
kinds of cacao in the Philippine Islands and the ripe fruit is either 
red or yellow. 

The many seeds are arranged inside the fruit in very regular 
rows. It is from the seeds that chocolate is extracted. The fruit 
must be gathered by cutting it, not by twisting or pulling, for the 
cacao is a very tender tree. It is almost certain to be injured by 
the wounds made from pulling off the fruit, since, if the bark is 
torn, this gives a good place for the entrance of the insects which 
attack the wood. 

After the fruit is picked, it needs to be piled in heaps in a 
closed room, or put in bags, and left for a few days. This is the 
process of "sweating." After the sweating, it is much easier to 
separate the seeds from the fruit. The seeds now have a rich brown 
color, and need to be carefully dried in the sun. After that is 
done, they are ready to be ground up and have the valuable extract 
taken from them. Most cacao-farmers sell the cacao-seeds without 
grinding them. 

Monkeys, rats, and parrots, as well as insects, are enemies of 

the cacao and the cacao-farmers. 
13 



SS A NATURE STUDY READER 

CHAPTER XX 

THE AURORA ; A VINE 

The aurora or morning-glory is one of the commonest and 
most beautiful of Philippine flowers. It is well called the " glory 
of morning-." for in the morning you may see its hundreds of del- 
icate purple, or blue, or pink corollas, but in the afternoon they 

have wilted, and their glory is gone. 

Aurora is the first plant you have studied which has the habit 
of climbing upon other plants or upon the sides of houses. Such 
plants are called vines. The stems of vines are not strong enough 
to stand alone. They must have some other support to help them 
get their leaves up into the life-giving sunlight. 

The difference between erect plants and vines may be compared 
to the difference between wind-loving and insect-loving flowers ; 
each has some advantage over the other. You can see that vines 
have an advantage over erect plants because they do not have to 
spend a great deal of their strength in making stiff and woody 
stems. Thev make other plants do for them the work of holding 
their leaves up in the light. Have you not seen mango-trees almost 
covered by an aurora-vine ? On the other hand, if the aurora can 
not find anything to climb on. then it is not so well off as if it 
had a stiff, strong stem of its own. no matter how hard work it 
may have been to make that stem. In that way the erect plants 
certainly have an advantage over the vines. They are more 
independent. 

Some vines climb bv twisting their stems about the supporting 
branches of other plants, while others have special little holders 




Aurora. 



90 A NATURE STUDY READER 

which- are called "tendrils." The aurora climbs by its twisting 
stem, but you can probably find near your house a vine with ten- 
drils. Tendrils come out of the stems like leaves, and in truth they 
are leaves which have been very much changed in shape so that they 
can do this special kind of work. Tendrils have a wonderful power 
of feeling and holding. They are long and slender, almost like a 
piece of green string, and, as soon as their delicate tips touch some- 
thing which seems to be good for giving support, they begin to wind 
about it. Sometimes you find tendrils twisted round and round id 
a perfect spiral. It takes them only a few hours to get a firm hold. 

Perhaps the commonest kind of aurora in the Islands is the one 
with purple flowers, though that is not the kind which is drawn in 
the large picture. The one with purple flowers has leaves which are 
divided into five parts, somewhat as the hand is divided into five 
fingers. The leaves of aurora always have long "petioles."' The 
stem part of a leaf is called a petiole, and leaves which do not have 
petioles are called sessile. Do you remember any plant vou have 
studied which has sessile leaves ? 

Long petioles are very useful to aurora, or to any other kind 

vine. If vou look at aurora closely vou may soon understand the 

j ... 

need it has for them. The young leaves always have a regular place 
for coming out from the stem. You remember that in pandacaqui 
and in lantana the leaves are in pairs, and each pair is arranged at 
right angles to the one above and the one below it so that they do 
not shade each other. This is a very good arraneement for erect 
plants, but it would not do at all for vines. Vines must always 
have one side against their support, and so away from the light, vet 
the leaves must all be on the light side if thev are to do their work. 
Xow you will see when you look carefullv at aurora that the leav-s 
are fastened first to one side of the stem and then to the other, 



THE AURORA; A VINE 



91 



although the broad, flat part of the leaf, which is called the blade, 
always seems to be on the sunny side. It is the work of the peti- 
oles to carry the leaves which are fastened to the shaded side around 
to the sunlit side. You can easily see that, if the leaves of aurora 
were sessile, those on the shaded side would have a very bad time of 
it. You may often find petioles of aurora which 
have twisted clear around the stem in trying to 
keep their leaves in the light. The stem of 
aurora keeps twisting as it grows and that makes 
the work of the long petioles all the more 
necessary. 

You may often find on the aurora two small 
leaves just at the place where the petiole joins the 
stem. These small leaves are called " stipules." 
The stipules have just the same shape as the large 
leaves. Although they are so small, they seem 
to be for the purpose of catching and using any 
light which shines past the larger leaves. 

The flowers of aurora are borne on slender branches which arise 
one from each leaf-axil. The axil of a leaf is the place where the 
leaf or its petiole joins the main stem. The flower-bearing branch 
is called the " pedicel." The pedicels are just about the same length 
as the petioles, for the flowers, as well as the blades of the leaves, 
must be in the sunlight. You will notice that there is one flower 
for each leaf, but that the leaves last much longer than the flowers. 
Do you know how many days a flower of aurora lasts ? The blos- 
som of to-day is always a certain distance from the end of the stem, 
while the faded flower of yesterday or the day before is to be found 
in the axil of the leaf just behind it, and the bud of to-morrow's 
flower is in the axil just ahead. 




Flower of aurora cut 
open. 



92 A NATURE STUDY READER 

The picture of the flower cut open shows very plainly the 
arrangement of its parts. The pretty corolla has the shape of a 
bell and is composed of five united petals. You can tell this from 
the rive pointed parts, like a star, which form the thicker part of 
the corolla. The stamens are not all the same length and grow 
very close to the pistil. The stigma has two parts. Do you know 
whether the aurora produces good fruit or whether it produces its 
young in some other wav ? 



CHAPTER XXI 

MANGO 

Here is a Xature-Study subject which should be interesting to 
all people who live in the Philippines. This is one of the subjects 
about which you may be able to tell your teacher more than is 
printed in this book. All Filipino boys and girls know a good deal 
about mangoes and mango-trees, just as American boys and girls 
know a good deal about apples and apple-trees. Apple-trees and 
mancro-trees are both easv to climb. They both give a pleasant 
shade from the hot sun and bear fruit which is very good to eat. 
No wonder they make very attractive playgrounds for boys and 
girls ! 

The mango has been called the "king of tropical fruits." It 
grows in nearly all tropical countries, but people who have eaten 
g 1 Philippine mangoes say they are the best of all. This is a 
product of which we may be very proud. One of the first ques- 
tions usuallv asked bv the manv visitors who come to Manila is 



MANGO 93 

about the famous mangoes, and they are greatly disappointed if it 
is not the right season for them. 

The only unpleasant thing about a mango is the trouble of 
eating it. You know how hard it is not to get the rich, juicy pulp 
on your face and fingers and clothes. It is a common saying that 
the only comfortable way to eat a mango is to eat it while you are 
taking a bath. 

Do you know in what months the flowers and fruit are found 
on the mango-trees ? Do you know whether they are found at the 
same time in all parts of the Islands ? It is true that the flowers 
and fruit of many kinds of plants do not appear at the same time 
in all parts of the Islands. This is because the rainy seasons and 
the dry seasons do not come at the same time to the whole archi- 
pelago. The rainy season usually does not come to the eastern side 
of the archipelago at the same time that it comes to the western 
side. Now in many plants the time of flower-bearing depends upon 
the different seasons. Some plants, like gumamela and papaya, 
seem to bear flowers the whole year long. There are many more 
plants, however, which have only certain times of the year for pro- 
ducing flowers, and the mango is one of these. So it may be that 
when the mango-trees are bearing flowers in one part of the Islands, 
they may be found without flowers in another part. Yet it is usual 
for the mango-flowers to begin in late December, and the very first, 
high-priced mangoes are sometimes gathered in January. From 
January until June the small, fragrant blossoms are very abundant, 
and their pleasant odor perfumes the air all about the graceful tree. 
There is much pleasure in having a mango-tree near your house at 
this season. 

Probably you have all seen men cut the bark of mango-trees 
with their bolos. It is hard to find one whose bark is not scarred 




Mango. 



MANGO 95 

by old bolocuts. You know that this is done to hasten the com- 
ing of the fruit. Men also build fires under the large branches in 
early morning, believing that if smoke spreads among the branches 
at that time the fruit will be better and will ripen more quickly. It 
is not easy to explain why the smoking and cutting help the fruit, 
but you may understand this when you have studied botany, which 
is the science of plants. 

It is believed that the mango is not a native plant of the 
Philippines, but that it was brought here many years ago from 
India. Yet it seems in these days to grow even better in the Phil- 
ippines than it does in India. There are many other useful and 
common plants which are not native to the Islands, but which were 
brought here from other countries. The Spaniards brought many 
plants from Spain and the West Indies. Even to-day the Agricul- 
tural Bureau of the Government is trying to introduce into the 
Philippines many of the useful plants of other countries. Very 
often plants which are introduced into new countries grow there 
even better than they did in their old homes. 

For a tropical plant, the mango is slow in growing. You must 
remember that plants usually grow much faster in the tropics than 
in temperate regions, since they do not have to stop growth in the 
winter. Yet the mango requires at least ten years before it will 
bear fruit. When you think of the quick growth of papaya and 
banana this seems a long time, yet it is no longer than the time 
required by most of the fruit-trees of temperate regions. The 
slow growth of the mango-tree is one of the reasons why the 
fruit is more expensive than other kinds of Philippine fruits. 
If mangoes could be shipped like bananas to the great cities 
of temperate regions, they would be sure to sell for a very good 
price. It seems impossible to keep them from decay more than a 



g6 A NATURE STUDY READER 

few days after they are picked, even if they are picked before they 
are ripe. 

The small, whitish flowers of mango grow in luxuriant inflores- 
cences. There are always hundreds, yes, even thousands, more of 
flowers on the tree than there ever are of fruits. This is also true 
of the apple-trees of America. In spring they are covered over 
with fragrant pink and white blossoms. Nothing is more beautiful 
than an apple-orchard in full bloom. This great abundance of 
flowers seems to be a plan which the tree has for making sure of a 
good crop of fruit. Thousands of the blossoms must die without 
producing fruit, yet even then there may be as much fruit as the 
tree can carry. Always there are accidents which destroy many of 
the flowers, and the fruit which first begins to grow crowds out 
many others which are near it. It is the same way in macahia. 
The tree seems to understand this and know that it is a good thing 
to produce a hundred flowers to be sure of getting one fruit. 

Perhaps the greatest enemy of the flowers of mango is the rain. 
They never begin to appear until after the regular rainy season is 
over. Then, if heavy rains come while the trees are in bloom, thou- 
sands of the tender blossoms are beaten to the ground. Perhaps 
you have heard the true saying that a good year for the rice is a 
bad year for the mangoes. When heavy rains come and injure the 
mango-crop they help the rice-crop. There is another true saying 
that the best years for mangoes are likely to be years of- much sick- 
ness among the people because there is little rain. 

Very many of the mango-trees in the Philippines seem to have 
been blown over. The main trunk lies along the ground. From 
this we may conclude that the roots do not go deeply into the 
ground, but are shallow. It does not seem to injure the vitality of 
the mango-tree to be upset in this way. It keeps on growing and 



THE SOIL 97 

bearing fruit as well as ever. Its long, shiny leaves are very abun- 
dant and form an excellent wind-screen for plants like cacao or 
coffee, which love a still air. 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE SOIL 

You have learned that animals can not live without plants. 
Plants are the great source of food for animals. You are now to 
learn that plants, with very few exceptions, can not live without 
soil. Soil is the great source of material out of which plants make 
food. The air also supplies a necessary part of the food-material, 
but air does not have so great an effect upon plants as the soil. Air 
is almost exactly the same the world round and it comes to all 
plants alike, but soil is of many kinds and each kind has a different 
effect upon plants. 

Soil comes from two sources. It is made of decomposed or 
broken-down rock and of material which comes from living things, 
as the leaves and branches which fall in a forest. If you are to 
understand how the soil has been formed, you must try first to think 
of the time when there was no soil. Perhaps you have already 
learned that men believe that ages ago, before there were living 
things on the earth, the whole surface was covered with rock. In 
our time we find the land-surfaces nearly all covered with soil, but 
if we di^ down we soon come to solid rock. 

The most important things which are at work to-day in break- 
ing up rock into soil are, air, water, changes of temperature, and 



98 A NATURE STUDY READER 

living things. Since there were no living things on the earth at 
first, and since there can be no living things without soil, we must try 
to understand how the first soil was formed without their aid. First, 
let us think of the work which the air did. Air is composed of 
three gases, oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic-acid gas. Now the last 
of these three gases has the power of changing some of the material 
of which rock is composed from an insoluble into a soluble con- 
dition. Soluble means that the material will dissolve in water. Now 
many kinds of rock are built a good deal like a brick or stone wall. 
They are composed of many fine grains wmich are held together by 
a sort of cement. If this cement has been changed into a soluble 
condition by the action of one of the gases of the air, and then 
water falls on the rock, what do you suppose would happen ? What 
do you suppose would happen if the cement of a brick wall were 
soluble and the wall were covered with water ? You would soon 
have nothing left but a heap of bricks. The cement would all be 
dissolved by the water. And so it is with some kinds of rock. The 
water dissolves and washes away the material which has been made 
soluble, and leaves behind only grains of sand or soil. So you can 
see that this is one of the ways in which soil was formed from the 
rock without the help of living things. 

In tropical regions, where the temperature is nearly the same 
the year round, it is not so easy to see the effect which changes of 
temperature have in breaking up the rock as it is in countries farther 
north or south. When water is changed to ice it increases its size. 
When winter comes the little crevices and cracks in the rocks are 
often filled with water. You can easily see that when this water 
turns to ice it will help split the rock into smaller pieces and so 
help in the great work of soil formation. 

The thing which we can watch most easily at its work of 



THE SOIL 99 

changing" rock into soil is the water as it runs in streams or dashes 
in waves against the shore. Then you can see how pieces of rock 
are ground against each other until they are worn to fine sand, which 
is one kind of soil. When the streams are high you can see that 
they are carrying along with them much soil which they have swept 
from their banks higher up in their course. Wet soil is called mud 
and a muddy stream leaves much soil along its course. Those of 
you who live near rivers have surely seen how much of the land on 
each side of the river is covered with soil which has been carried 
down from the upper parts of the stream at flood-time. Soil which 
has thus been carried and laid down by streams is called alluvial 
Alluvial soil is excellent for the growing of cultivated plants. The 
fine tobacco-lands of the Cagayan valley are all covered with alluvial 
soil. 

Soil composed of very fine grains which stick closely together 
when they are wet is called clay. A soil which is a mixture of clay 
and sand is called loam. Nearly all soils which have been formed 
by the work of rivers are loamy soils. Loam is better for the plants 
than either pure sand or pure clay. Pure sand does not hold water 
well enough, while pure clay holds it too well. Besides, clay is stiff 
and heavy so that it is difficult for the farmer to work it with his 
agricultural implements. Soil which is composed of the decaying 
parts of plants and animals is called humus, and this kind of soil is 
the richest of all in food-material for the plants. 

In the cultivation of plants, perhaps the most important thing 
is the preparation of the soil. The process of breaking up soil so 
that plants can live in it better is called tillage. Plowing, harrow- 
ing, spading, raking ; all are forms of tillage. Tillage helps the 
plants in many different ways. It makes it easier for the young 
roots to grow. There is much food-material in the soil which the 



L.oFC. 



IOO A NATURE STUDY READER 

plant can not use because it is not in a soluble condition. The little 
root-hairs can not take anything from the soil unless it is dissolved. 
Now the farmer when he plows his land lets the air reach all parts 
of the soil, and the air enriches the soil for the plant by changing 
food-material into a soluble condition. In time of drought, well- 
tilled land holds moisture in it much better than that which has 
been badly tilled. In tilling, the farmer can kill the troublesome 
plants, or weeds, which threaten to crowd out the plants which he is 
cultivating. 

We have learned that by cultivation men can make plants grow 
much better than they do when they are wild. But there is a price 
for this improvement in the plants which the soil must pay. When 
plants are growing wild they never use up the food-material of the 
soil any faster than it is formed. One of the reasons why cultivated 
plants grow so much better than wild plants is because the farmer, 
by tillage and other means, gives the plants a chance to take from 
the soil as much as it can of the food-material which is there. The 
result of this is that after a few years the land becomes exhausted of 
food-material. The crops are better, but the land is poorer. This 
is one of the reasons why the farmer must give much attention to 
his land. If he grows tobacco on the same land, one year after 
another, the tobacco becomes poorer and poorer because the soil has 
become poor in the particular kind of food-material which tobacco 
loves. 

There are several things which a farmer can do to keep his soil 
from becoming poor. One of the best things to do is to put fertil- 
izers on it. A fertilizer is anything which is rich in food-material, 
and so makes the soil more fertile. Manure from the stables, guano, 
and rich humus are all good fertilizers. Another way to keep soil 
from becoming poor is by growing different kinds of plants in sue- 



TOBACCO IOI 

cession upon the same land. This is called " rotation of crops." 
It has been found that different plants require different kinds of 
food-material, so that when a piece of ground has become poor for 
tobacco, for example, it may be all right for corn. Then, after a 
few seasons, it may be all right for tobacco again. 

The next chapter is about tobacco, a plant which is more easily 
affected by the soil than any other important economic plant of the 
Philippines. 



CHAPTER XXIII 

TOBACCO 

Tobacco is used in all parts of the world, but perhaps nowhere 
more than in these Islands, where even the children often learn to 
smoke as soon as they learn to walk. It is said that no other plant- 
product, except tea, is used in so many countries and by so many 
people. It is remarkable that in both of these widely used plants it 
is the leaf, not the fruit, which is the valuable part. 

Tobacco was not known in Europe until Sir Walter Raleigh, 
about three hundred years ago, brought it home to England from 
Virginia. It is said that when an old servant of Sir Walter's saw 
him smoking, he thought his master was on fire and quickly threw 
a pail of water over him. Tobacco soon became very popular in 
England, and in the days of the Colonies it was the most valuable 
crop grown in America. 

This product is third in value of the exports of the Philippine 
Islands. Nearly six million dollars' worth in Philippine money is 
sent to other countries each year. Cagayan and Isabela are the best 



102 A NATURE STUDY READER 

provinces for tobacco-growing, yet even in the excellent lands of the 
Cagavan valley the cultivation is imperfect. The three great proc- 
esses in preparing tobacco for the market are cultivation, curing, 
and fermentation. Although Philippine tobacco is imperfectly cul- 
tivated, imperfectly cured, and imperfectly fermented, yet it is con- 
sidered good. This plainly shows that the tobacco-lands of the 
Islands are very fine. The tobacco is good in spite of the imperfect 
treatment it receives. 

The cultivation of this plant teaches us many important things. 
Not only does it give us knowledge which is valuable to the man 
who grows it, but it also illustrates some important things in plant- 
life which are also true for all plants. No plant cultivated in the 
tropics is so much affected by its surroundings as tobacco. It gives 
us an excellent illustration of the effects which surroundings may 
have upon plants in general. The valuable part of tobacco is the 
leaf, and leaves are more easily affected by their surroundings than 
are flowers or fruit. Thus you may often find the leaves of different 
plants of gumamela or culut-culutan very different in shape, while 
the flowers and fruit are exactly the same. So when the farmer 
wants to get a certain kind of leaf, instead of a certain kind of 
flower or fruit, you see that he has a more delicate problem. He 
must carefully study the peculiarities of his farm. 

Tobacco is easily affected by climate, soil, elevation, nearness to 
the sea, light and shade, and methods of cultivation. A great deal 
of tobacco is grown in the United States, but it has never seemed 
possible to get leaves of such good flavor as those grown in a trop- 
ical climate, even through the most careful methods of cultivation 
have been used. Recently it has been found in Connecticut that by 
covering the fields of tobacco with cloth screens a much better kind 
of leaf is produced ; almost as good as the leaves produced in 




14 



Tobacco. 



104 A NATURE STUDY READER 

Cuba. This plainly shows how easily leaves are affected by their 
surroundings. 

Each new kind of soil gives new qualities to the leaf. Tobacco 
grown near salt water burns poorly. Valleys of the interior, whose 
deep soils have been laid down by streams, seem to be best for this 
crop. Good soil for tobacco is dry, warm, rich, deep, and somewhat 
sandy. The Philippine Islands have many interior valleys, where 
now only wild plants grow, which might be used for excellent 
tobacco-farms. 

You know that as a cigar burns it leaves a great deal of ash. The 
material of this ash was taken from the soil on which the tobacco- 
plant grew. It orce was food-material for the plant. Since the 
burning of tobacco gives so much ash, we may conclude that the 
plant is very greedy in its use of food-material. We can easily un- 
derstand that where tobacco grows the soil must become poorer and 
poorer in the materials which compose this ash, unless a new supply 
is added each year. Many tobacco-planters use fertilizers each year 
to renew the supply of food-material. 

Tobacco is one of the crops which are grown from seed and 
the seedlings are transplanted. Very young plants which have 
grown from seeds are called seedlings. Rice is grown in the same 
way, but tobacco requires more care than rice. The very small 
seeds are sown in good soil which has been selected and carefully 
prepared for " seed-beds." After two or three months the young 
plants are taken up from the seed-beds and set out in the fields. 
In Cagayan the seed is sown in late September or early October, 
and the young plants are transplanted in December. 

The farmer must be very careful of his seed-beds. The soil 
must be very good and carefully tilled. The seed is mixed with 
sand or fine wood-ashes and spread smoothly over the surface. The 



TOBACCO 105 

surface is then rolled. The seeds are so small that forty-five grams 
are enough to sow one hectare of seed-bed. The beds need to be 
shaded after the planting, and shelters about three feet high are 
usually made of the leaves of nipa or cogon-grass. After a few 
weeks the shelters may be taken away. White ants and worms are 
the worst enemies of the young plants in the seed-beds. 

When the young plants are taken up the farmer must be very 
careful not to break the little roots or the plants will not live 
in their new home. It is best to wash the soil away instead of try- 
ing to shake it off. The ends of the young roots are covered with 
hundreds of fine hairs, so small that they are difficult to see. These 
" root-hairs" are the things which do the important work of taking 
water and food-material from the soil into the plant. They have to 
be very delicate or the water would not pass into them. If they are 
all broken off, the little plant will not have time to form new ones 
in its new home before the leaves wither and die for the lack 
of water and food-material. 

Except when he wishes to get seeds for planting, the tobacco- 
farmer usually pinches off the top of the stems of his plants before 
the flowers have begun to appear upon them. All the food which the 
plant makes then goes to build up the leaves. They grow to a much 
better size when the plant does not have to do the work of making 
flowers and fruit. The young side-shoots or " suckers " are also 
taken off so that the whole strength of the plant may be thrown 
into the leaves. Taking off the tops of the plants is called "topping." 
It must not be done too soon, or it will give too much growth to the 
leaves and make them coarse. If the farmer wants very thin leaves, 
it is sometimes better for him not to top the plants at all. 

When the field-workers go about taking off the tops and the 
suckers they must also look out for worms. There are large to- 



106 A NATURE STUDY READER 

bacco-worms, like caterpillars in shape, which eat up the leaves very 
rapidly. They try to hide by getting on the under side of the 
leaves. Sometimes worms are found inside the stems. 

After the leaves are gathered the work of drying or curing must 
begin. The leaves are gathered on bamboo-sticks and then hung 
on strings. The curing takes about a month. After that the leaves 
may be tied in bundles and sent to the factories, for in the Philip- 
pines the work of fermentation is usually done at the factories. It 
is the fermentation of the leaves which gives them their good flavor 
in smoking. Fermentation is really the beginning of decay. The 
leaves are piled in heaps and then are pressed. Sometimes they are 
soaked in a kind of wine which helps to give them a pleasant flavor. 
This process takes another month and the leaves must be carefully 
watched for fear they may ferment a little too much. After fer- 
mentation the tobacco is ready to be made into cigars and cigarettes. 



CHAPTER XXIV 

LANSONES 

Lansones grows best in the province of Laguna. In the 
month of October the boats which come from Laguna de Bay down 
the Pasig River to Manila are nearly always loaded with many great 
baskets of this delicious little fruit. Much of it is sold in the mar- 
kets of Manila and at the fiestas. 

The lansones is a native plant of the Philippines. It was never 
brought here from another country, like the mango from India. 
It does not grow in the countries of temperate regions. If you ask 



LANSONES 107 

an American who has not been in the Islands very long whether he 
knows the lansones he is very apt to reply, " O, you mean the fruit 
which looks like a bunch of big yellow grapes." Every American 
is just as familiar with grapes as the Filipino is with lansones, and 
the bunches of lansones certainly have much the shape of bunches 
of grapes. If an American boy saw the picture of lansones he 
would probably be quite sure that he was looking at some kind of 
grape. Yet these two plants are really no more related than pandan 
and pina, whose fruits also look much alike. Though you may not 
have seen grapes growing, you probably know that the grape-plant 
is a vine, while lansones is a small tree. Wine is made from 
the juice of grapes. The skin of a grape is soft and sweet to the 
taste and the inside pulp slips out from it very easily. The skin of 
lansones is tough and bitter to taste and the pulp sticks closely 
to it. The grape has several small seeds while the lansones usually 
has but two which are of good size. 

The lansones-tree is usually not more than twice the height of 
a man. It has a peculiar way of bearing its leaves. The petioles 
are very short, as you may see in the picture, but you can not see 
very well the natural position of the leaves. When the petioles of 
a leaf are very short the leaves of one branch usually lie all in 
the same direction, as the leaves of bayabas, but in lansones the 
leaves are* turned in many directions. This is one way of keeping 
the leaves from shading each other. You have probably already 
seen that plants have many different ways of doing this same thing. 

Lansones can show us very plainly the effect which cultivation 

has upon a plant. Since it is cultivated for the sake of its fruit, not 

for its leaves, the problem is not so difficult as in tobacco. Wild 

lansones, the very great-grandfather of the cultivated kind, is found 

in large numbers in some of the Philippine forests, especially in the 
15 




Lansones. 



LANSONES IO9 

province of Bataan. The fruit of this wild form does not have a 
pleasant taste like the one which is cultivated. Also you will find 
that it contains five seeds. 

Since lansones is cultivated because the soft pulp of the fruit is 
pleasant to eat, it is much better to have a fruit which has only one 
or two seeds in it, or best of all to get a fruit without any seed. 
You already know that the best kinds of bananas are those which 
have the smallest and weakest seeds. Sometimes a fruit of lan- 
sones is found which is all soft pulp inside and has no hard seeds at 
all. Have you ever seen one like this ? Now the fruit of the 
wild lansones has five good seeds in it, and even in the cultivated 
form we find that the fruit is divided into five parts, each one of 
which is evidently for the purpose of holding a seed, although most 
of them are not developed. How do you suppose this plant could 
have been changed by cultivation so that it now bears fruit with 
only one or two seeds, and sometimes has no seeds at all ? Let us 
see whether this matter can be explained a little. 

You know that the natural work of flowers and fruit is to 
produce seed, so that the plant may be reproduced. You know 
that if the fruit does not bear good seed, the plant must produce its 
young in some other way. Thus, the banana produces its young by 
means of suckers. If the plant is successful in producing its young 
in some other way it seems to be willing to give up the seed- 
method. This, too, is illustrated by the banana which never pro- 
duces good seed. So men by cultivation, by reproducing the plant 
by suckers and cuttings and not by seed, seem to change the natural 
work of fruit, or at least to relieve it of a good deal of that work. 
Thus it seems to be the natural work of the fruit of the cultivated 
lansones, not to produce good seed, but to produce much juicy 
pulp, pleasant to the taste. 



110 A NATURE STUDY READER 

Such a change as the one which has been made in the fruit of 
lansones, from the wild to the cultivated condition, can be made only 
in a great many years. To understand how this has been done by 
the many generations of people who have cultivated lansones in the 
Philippine Islands, you must understand that even the same kind of 
plant does not always bear exactly the same kind of fruit. The 
same kind of plant will produce better fruit when it grows on very 
good soil than when it grows on very poor soil. Differences in soil, 
water, and other things will produce a greater effect upon the leaves 
than they will upon the fruit, still the effect upon the fruit may be 
seen. So you might find a tree of wild lansones whose fruit tastes 
better and has smaller seeds than the fruit of its neighbors. 

Now suppose you cut some good branches from this tree and 
transplant them to the soil near your house. The cultivation of lan- 
sones probably began in some such way as this. Then from the 
new trees you would cultivate again from the one which bore the 
best fruit, and give no more attention to the others. If this process 
is kept up for many years, and new trees always grown from cuttings 
and not from seeds, at last the plant may seem to give up the old 
habit of producing fruit for the sake of the seeds and seem to pro- 
duce it only for the sake of its juicy pulp. Man, by cultivation, has 
relieved the plant of the work of producing seeds since he always 
takes care that the plant shall be well reproduced by cuttings from 
the old plants. Somewhat in this way there has been produced in 
California a kind of orange which is seedless. It should not be 
very hard by careful cultivation to get seedless fruit of lansones. 

This same principle is true in the cultivation of all kinds of 
plants, whether they are cultivated for the sake of the fruit or for 
some other product. Seeds, when sown, usually produce plants 
exactly of the same kind as the one on which they grew. Yet it 



THE COCONUT-PALM III 

may happen that the new plant is a little different from the old one, 
and, if it is better, it should be carefully watched and young plants 
grown from it. In this way skilful cultivators often improve the 
fruits, or flowers, or leaves (as tobacco), or fibers (as hemp), or 
whatever else may be the useful product of the plant. 

You can see in the picture the way in which the little flowers 
of lansones grow, scattered along the flower branches and are not 
crowded together. They seem to be leaving room for the growth 
of the fruit. Lansones seems to expect one fruit from each flower, 
and does not, like mango, produce thousands more of flowers than it 
can ever expect to bear of fruit. 



CHAPTER XXV 

THE COCONUT-PALM 

No plant of the tropics is a better friend to man than the 
" Prince of Palms." No plant of the tropics is better known 
throughout the world. This name, Prince of Palms, has been given 
to the coconut. It is a name well deserved by this royal plant. 
The coconut-palm is both beautiful and bountiful. It loves to 
grow along sandy, tropical shores. It thrives where its roots are 
washed by the waves. There it may be seen in pleasant groves, 
each graceful tree with its splendid crown of leaves turned toward 
the sea, as though to welcome the ocean breezes. 

The history of the coconut-palm goes back nearly as far as the 
history of man. Its native country no one knows. Even in the 
Philippine Islands there are sayings of the people which are older 

16 



112 A NATURE STUDY READER 

than written history, and which rell of the coconut. There is an 
old saying in the Visayan Islands that. " He who grinds the poor 
will grind water instead of oil from the meat of the coconut/' 

Like the mango, this is a Nature-Study subject about which 
Filipino boys and girls probably know more than they will find 
written in this short chapter. They know that the fruit of coco- 
nut gives food and drink and oil. They know that the leaves are 
good for thatching and for making baskets and mats. Rope is 
often made from the fibers of the rough husk of the nut, which is 
called the " coir," and from the outer part of the stems a beautifullv 
marked kind of wood may be obtained. 

Since it would take a whole chapter to tell simply of the uses 
of the coconut-palm, and you already know most of these, we had 
better give our attention to learning how the plant lives and 
produces its valuable fruit. Try to get one of the flower-bearing 
branches and see for yourself the two kinds of flowers. Thev are 
not beautiful or fragrant. Thev grow on a long, slender stalk which 
is called the " spadix." In one of the pictures you may see the v 
in which the flowers are arranged on the spadix. The few, round, 
female flowers are at the bottom, while the many, small, male 
flowers are scattered along the upper part. The male flowers nearest 
the bottom are the first to open their three, stiff, little sepals, In- 
side these protecting sepals we find six stamens, but no petals. 

The female flower is more difficult to understand. It seems to 
be formed of nothing more than the round, hard ovary, which grad- 
ually changes into the fruit. This fruit contains but a single seed. 
The whole fruit, inside the outer covering, is really just one big 
seed. The white meat, or "kernel,'"' of the coconut is the food 
which has been stored up for the use of the baby plant, or " embryo," 
which lies embedded in this white, oily meat. Perhaps you can 




Coconut-palm. 



114 



A NATURE STUDY READER 




find the embryo. It looks much like the meat which surrounds it, 
and is about the size of a small marble. It lies at the end from 

which the young plant begins to grow when 
the coconut sprouts. A fruit which has a 
hard outer coat, and contains only one seed, is 
called a "nut." The coconut is the larg- : 
kind of nut in the world. 
There is so much moisture in a coconut that it does 
not have to be placed in the ground in order to make 
it sprout. It is common to hang up the nuts in the 
shade, or pile them in little heaps, and, after they have 
begun to sprout, they are transplanted. In the West 
Indies, where coconuts are grown on many plantations 
for the northern markets, the seed-nuts are placed in 
shallow trenches, and covered with trash to shelter them 
from the sun and keep the moisture from evaporating 
too rapidly. They are left in these nursery-beds for 
about six months, and then planted in holes at least ten 
yards apart. The young plants are put down so that 
their tops just come to the surface, so that the roots 
may get a firm hold on the soil. It is quite necessary 
for shore-loving plants that the roots should be well 
fastened in the soil, else high winds would be certain to 
overturn them. 
Coconut-palms should be planted either on alluvial soil, 
near the mouths of rivers, or on sandy soil along the shores of 
the sea. In five years they will bear flowers, and in two years more 
the first crop of fruit may be gathered. Seven years is a long time 
to wait for the crop, but then the tree seems to make up for lost 
time by bearing a great deal of fruit, and producing it all the year 



Inflorescence 
of coconut- 
palm. 



THE COCONUT-PALM 1 1 5 

round. Seventy-five nuts each year is a good average, but some 
trees produce over two hundred. 

There is a tree on a coconut-plantation near Zamboanga which 
has never failed for twenty-three years to produce two hundred 
coconuts each year. On this plantation many new plants have been 
set out in past years, but it has not been the plan to take the seeds 
for planting from the tree which bore two hundred nuts any more 
than from the other trees. You can understand, from your study 
of the cultivation of lanzones, how much better it would be always to 
take the seeds for planting from the most productive trees. 

When we examine a ripe coconut the first thing we see is the 
rough, fibrous, outer coat. This is the part called the coir. When 
the nut is broken open, the milk runs out from the center, and we 
can see the white meat, or kernel, which lines the shell. This meat, 
when well dried, is called "copra," and it is the most valuable prod- 
uct of the coconut. Much of it is prepared in the Philippines and 
other tropical islands. A great deal is shipped to Marseilles, in 
France, and there it is prepared, in different forms, for the markets 
of the world. Coconut-oil is extracted from the copra, and the 
part which remains is used in the manufacture of a number of other 
products. The factories of Marseilles make a large profit in manu- 
facturing the products of copra, and it would be far better for the 
coconut industry in the Philippine Islands if we had our own facto- 
ries for this purpose. 

It is common for Filipino coconut-growers to throw away the 
husks. Often you may see thousands of them piled up near coco- 
nut-plantations and left to decay. This is a wasteful practice, for 
the fibers of these husks have commercial value for rope-making. 
The coconut-grower could make a good profit if he would take the 
trouble of preparing these fibers for the market. Machines are 



Il6 A NATURE STUDY READER 

used at many factories for separating the nuts from the husks. This 
work, which is all done by hand in the Philippines, can be done by one 
of these machines at the rate of five hundred to a thousand nuts in an 
hour. The husks are kept just as carefully as the nuts themselves. 

We can easily understand what these thick, fibrous husks are 
for when we think of the height of the coconut-trees and the weight 
of the nuts. If they were not protected by these husks, the nuts 
would be quite sure to burst open when they fall to the ground. 
Then the milk would escape and they would decay long before the 
embryo had grown into a young plant. Of course the nuts are 
picked and not allowed to fall to the ground when they are gathered 
for the market, but the plant had probably learned to protect its 
fruit with a heavy husk long before men, or even monkeys, had 
learned to climb the trees to get them. 

Two of the worst enemies of the coconut are rats and beetles. 
There is a kind of rat which makes its nests in the trash which col- 
lects in the axils of the big leaves and then preys on the young nuts. 
The beetle which preys on the coconut is called the ''rhinoceros- 
beetle." It is very strong and bores its way into the stem. Its fav- 
orite place of attack is the axils of the young leaves. A good pro- 
tection is to place handfuls of sand in these places. 



CHAPTER XXVI 

GUAVA OR BAY ABAS 



The guava is one of the best -known tropical fruits. It is com- 
mon in the Eastern and Western tropics alike. Guava-jelly is one 



GUAVA OR BAYABAS 117 

of the most delicious of preserves and is sold all over the world. 
Some people are fond of the fruit just as it is picked from the tree, 
but is better when eaten with sugar. 

There are several kinds of guava. One is a shrub, while an- 
other is a large tree from which beautiful wood is obtained. But 
the common kind of guava is a small tree, usually about twelve feet 
high, with simple, opposite leaves and small, white flowers. Surely 
you have all seen it growing near the houses, and have gathered 
the ripe fruit with a long stick and a bent wire. 

There has been much dispute among botanists in the Philip- 
pines as to whether guava is a native plant of the Islands or has 
been introduced from a foreign country. Some were very sure that 
the guava is an introduced plant, but Padre Blanco proved that it is 
native to the Islands. Blanco was an Augustinian, and, until his 
death in 1845, was the greatest botanist in the Philippines. In his 
famous work, the Flora Filipinas, he tells how he found that guava 
must surely have been here long before the Spaniards came to the 
Islands. Padre Blanco traveled very much in the Islands and 
studied Nature carefully wherever he went. In the southern part of 
Luzon he once examined some rock which had been formed from 
the lava which had been poured out of a volcano in an eruption 
many hundreds of years before. You have all heard of the famous 
volcanoes of Taal and Mayon. There is a picture of Mayon on the 
Philippine money. You may wonder how he proved that guava is 
not an introduced plant by examining some volcanic rock, but that 
is just what he did. 

When there is an eruption of a volcano much lava pours from 
the mouth or crater at the top of the peak. This hot lava is noth- 
ing more than melted rock, and when at last it becomes cool it is 
quite as hard as any other kind of rock. When the lava runs down 




Guava, or bay abas. 



GUAVA OR BAY ABAS 119 

the sides of the volcano and spreads over the surrounding lands, the 
plants, and sometimes people too, are buried alive. After many 
years some one may come and break open the lava-rock and find 
there the exact forms of the things which were buried under the 
flood of lava at the time of the eruption. 

Now when Padre Blanco broke open a piece of lava-rock in 
southern Luzon he found there the outline of a leaf of guava. It 
was exactly like the leaves which the guava-plant bears to-day. 
Even the fine veins could be seen. After a while the fruit of 
guava was also found. These forms of once-living things which 
are found in rocks are called " fossils." Now when Padre Blanco 
found the fossils of guava leaves and fruit, he had proved that 
guava grew in the Islands long before the Spaniards came, for it 
had already been proved that the volcanic eruption which buried 
these leaves and fruit must have occurred long before white men 
came to these shores. 

Now let us look at the live guava-plant of tn-day. When you 
feel its hard, tough leaves with their strong veins and midrib you 
can better understand how they might leave their outline printed in 
the rocks where thinner and more delicate leaves would leave no 
trace at all. The leaf of guava has a very symmetrical arrangement 
of the veins. After you have once examined it you may tell guava 
from the leaves even if you do not see the rest of the plant. So we 
say that it has a very characteristic leaf. It was because guava has 
a characteristic leaf that Padre Blanco could be sure of the identity 
of the fossils which he found. Many other plants have leaves so 
very much alike that we could not be at all sure of their identity if 
we had to judge from the leaves alone. 

You will nearly always find that some of the leaves of guava 
have holes in them, such as you see in the picture. These holes 



120 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



have been made by insects. Have you ever seen leaf-eating insects 
at work on the leaves of guava ? 

The leaves are opposite and have very short petioles. In pan- 
dacaqui we also found opposite leaves with short petioles, but they 
are very differently arranged on the stem from those of guava. 
Each pair of leaves of pandacaqui is at right angles to the pair just 
above and the pair just below. This arrangement prevents them 
from shading each other. Now in guava we find that the pairs of 

leaves are not at right angles to each other, 
but all lie in nearly the same plane. Can 
you explain the reason for the difference in 
these two arrangements ? Perhaps you can 
find an explanation in the fact that the 
stems of pandacaqui have nearly a vertical 
position, while the branches of guava are 
nearly horizontal. 

The young parts of the branches of 
guava have a character which disappears 
when they become older. They are four- 
sided instead of round, like the older parts, 
and each of the four edges has a soft, 
green ridge running along it. This is one 
of the characters of the plant for which we 
can not well give a reason, but which is 
important to remember because such peculiarities help us in telling 
different plants apart. 

The flower of guava is quite different from those you have 
studied before. If you are reading this chapter at a time when the 
guava-trees near your home are in bloom, you should be sure to get 
some and examine them carefully. You can always learn about 




Flower of guava, cut in half. 



GUAVA OR BAYABAS 121 

Nature much better by studying Nature herself than by looking at 
pictures, no matter how good the pictures may be. 

Perhaps the first things which you notice in the picture of the 
guava-flower are that the stamens are very many, and that the ovary 
is beneath both the sepals and the petals. When an ovary has this 
position, which you have already seen in the flower of banana, it 
is said to be inferior ; that is, it is inferior or below the calyx and 
corolla. In most of the flowers which you have studied the ovary 
has been found above the bottom of the corolla. An ovary in this 
position is said to be superior. Now plants are divided into differ- 
ent groups according to the character of their flower-parts, and the 
character of the ovary is one of the most important things to notice 
if we care to know to what great group a plant belongs. 

The flower of guava is a good deal like the flower of the apple- 
trees of America, of which you have heard so much. They, too, 
are white, often pinkish-white, and have many stamens and an in- 
ferior ovary. After pollination the ovary begins to turn into fruit, 
and since the ovary is really in the top of the stem, a good deal of 
the part of the fruit which we eat is formed from the top of the 
stem. 

Another peculiar thing about the flower of guava is that, al- 
though the petals soon fall off, the stamens and sepals remain fast- 
ened to the top of the fruit long after their work has been finished. 
For this reason the sepals of such plants as guava are called " per- 
sistent." The seed of guava is scattered by birds which are very 
fond of pecking at the ripe fruit. We may be sure that the edible 
part of the fruit is more for the purpose of attracting birds than for 
attracting men. 



122 A NATURE STUDY READER 

CHAPTER XXVII 

COFFEE 

Coffee and tea are the two most common kinds of drinks 
which are made from plants. Both are largely used in all parts of 
the world and there is always a good market-price for them. They 
are considered necessities by most people, yet the drinking of too 
much coffee or tea is certainly not good for one's health. 

Tea is made from the leaves of the tea-plant, but in the coffee- 
plant it is the seeds which are the valuable part. In each fruit or 
" berry" of this plant two seeds are found. (A small fruit which 
has a soft pulp is often called a berry, just as long, narrow fruits 
which have the seeds in a row are called pods.) The coffee- 
berries are soft, round, and dark red when they are ripe. They are 
about a third of an inch in diameter. Inside the berry two hard 
seeds are found which take up most of the space. They are shaped 
something like beans, and are snugly packed in the pulp with their 
flat sides facing each other. You have probably often noticed that 
the coffee-beans which are sold in the market have one flat side, 
while the rest is round. This is on account of the way in which the 
beans are formed ; two in a berry and facing each other. The 
young ovules of coffee are round, but as they grow into seeds they 
press against each other and become flat on one side. 

When coffee beans are ready for the coffee-pot they are brown, 
but when they are on the plant they are never brown, nor do they 
have the pleasant odor which comes from them when they are 
ready for use. No matter how much you might examine a coffee- 
plant in the natural condition you would never detect anything like 




Coffee. 



124 A NATURE STUDY READER 

the pleasant fragrance which comes from a steaming coffee-pot. It 
is the artificial treatment which men give to the seeds which brings 
out the pleasant taste and odor. 

Much has to be done to the seeds from the time they are 
picked from the plant until the time they are ready for the market. 
First, they must be cured. You learned of this process in the 
chapter about tobacco, but the curing of coffee is quite different 
from the curing of tobacco. In coffee-curing the seeds are first 
cleaned of the pulp and skin of the berry which surround them, and 
then dried. Well-cured coffee is dry, hard, and brittle. It has a 
deep-green color and a strong and pleasant smell. After the coffee 
is cured, it may be shipped from the plantations to the mills where 
the rest of the work preparing it for the market is done. On the 
docks of New York and San Francisco may be seen thousands of 
sacks of this green, cured coffee, which has been brought from the 
coffee-plantations of the West Indies, Mexico, and Central Amer- 
ica. It is hoped that in the future a good share of the coffee used 
in the United States may be grown in the Philippine Islands. 

After it is cured, the coffee must be roasted. This makes the 
beans brown and crisp and brings out their good flavor. Now for 
the first time the coffee begins to have the pleasant odor which 
makes it such a popular drink. Roasting does for the coffee-beans 
just about what fermentation does for tobacco-leaves. The roasting 
must be done very carefully if we are to have a good quality. 

The last process in preparing coffee for use in the kitchen is 
to grind it up in a mill. Coffee will not have a rich flavor if it is 
boiled without grinding. From all this you see that it is no simple 
matter to prepare this plant product for the market even after the 
work of cultivation is done. 

The coffee-plant is a small tree which bears a great number of 



COFFEE 125 

berries. The flowers, as you can see in the picture, are borne in 
inflorescences at the joints of the branches. Since the fruit is 
hardly larger than the flower, there is room for a berry to be 
formed from each blossom. The flowers are very pretty, with their 
five white petals and five long stamens with red anthers. They 
have a pleasant odor. The beauty of a coffee-plantation does not 
disappear when the flowers are gone, for the red berries, showing 
through the dark -green leaves, make a fine sight. 

The trees are usually well trimmed and set out in straight rows. 
Like tobacco-plants, the coffee is "topped" when it is young, but 
of course not for the same reason. If the top is nipped off when 
the plant is three or four feet high, the side branches will grow and 
spread out. This makes it much easier to pick the fruit and the 
trees are not so much exposed to the high winds. 

Coffee-trees, like cacao, need shade when they are young. 
Banana-plants are often used for this purpose. When the tree is 
old enough to bear fruit, the shade-plants may be removed, for 
mature coffee can stand a good deal of sunlight. 

When land is cleared for starting a coffee-plantation, the bushes 
and weeds should be left to rot for fertilizers. The plants should 
be grown from seed in special beds where the soil is moist, rich, and 
deep. These are often called " nursery-beds." (A plant-nursery is 
any place where young plants, usually young trees, are grown to be 
transplanted after they have a good start.) Coffee-seeds are sown 
fresh from the berries and are set a few inches apart. The young 
plants must be kept free from weeds and well watered. Coffee 
likes a loamy soil. Clay is too stiff. 

When the young trees are set out in the fields they should be 
put about six feet from each other. Since they like plenty of air 
and sunlight, they can not be planted as close as cacao. In the 
1$ 



126 



A NATURE STUDY READER 



places where the young trees are set out the soil must be carefully- 
loosened and all stones taken out. 

After the young trees have begun to grow vigorously in their 
new home, the side-shoots or suckers should be cut away, as in 
tobacco-culture. If all the shoots are allowed to grow, the tree 
becomes thick and matted, so that air and light do not get to the 
center very well and the crop is poor. This cutting away of the 
unnecessary branches of a tree is called " pruning." 

The berries should be gathered when they have turned red. A 
machine called a " pulper " is usually used to separate the seeds from 

the rest of the 
berry. This ma- 
chine has a rough 
roller which crush- 
es the berries. Be- 
low the roller there 
is a sloping sieve 
down which the 
mashed -up pulp 
rolls away, while 
the seeds drop 
through it. Then 
the seeds are put 
in a tank for a day 
or two, so that the pulp which still sticks to them may be washed 
away. After that the seeds are ready to be dried. 

Coffee is grown in several different places in the Philippine 
Islands, but especially in the province of Batangas. Much has been 
planted near the town of San Pablo. It is usually better to grow 
coffee at least a few hundred feet above sea-level. This is one rea- 




A coffee plantation. 



PINA OR PINEAPPLE 127 

son why the Agricultural Bureau has chosen Lipa, in the province 
of Batangas, for the site of its experimental coffee-plantation. 
Some excellent coffee is grown in northern Luzon, but coffee- 
growing may still be called one of the ''infant industries" of the 
Philippines. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

PI&A OR PINEAPPLE 

PiftA is one of the economic plants of the Philippines which 
has two very different uses, for both of which it is excellent. What 
are these uses ? 

In the first chapter about pandan you learned that the fruit of 
pina is called in English a pineapple, though in many of the Eng- 
lish colonies it is called simply a "pine." In the United States it is 
called pineapple, though it would indeed be difficult to find any 
fruit which looks less like an apple than this one. 

The pineapple grows only in the tropics, yet it may be sent to 
all parts of the temperate regions without danger of decay if it is 
carefully packed. So this excellent fruit has become well known 
all over the world. Its peculiar, sweet taste has made it very popu- 
lar. Of the fruits shipped from the American tropics into the 
United States, the banana alone is more important than the pine- 
apple. 

Though this fruit is very agreeable to eat, it is not very easy to 
digest. It does not have such good food-qualities as the fruit of 
banana or papaya. Its pulp is not so soft and nutritious. You are 
almost sure to be ill if you eat too much of it. Padre Blanco 



12$ A NA7YZI 5771 Y 7.IAII?. 

writes that Filipino boys sometimes bleed at the mouth from eating 
too much pineapple. Has it ever made you sick ? 

Though the pineapple is not a native plant of the Philippines, 
it may be cultivated in all parts of the Islands. In the Visayan 
group this plant is grown especially for the sake of its leav-s. 
Surelv vou are all familiar with the delicate fabric which is made 
from the fine fibers of the leaves of the pineapple. This pina cloth 
is one of the best-known products of the Philippines, Much of it 
is made in Iloilo. Another cloth, known as pineapple linen, is 
made in China from these same leaves 

Have you ever seen the pineapple growing ? Have you ever 
looked for the stem ? If so, you have surely been disappointed, for 
the pineapple is practically a stemless plant. It has a cluster of 
stiff, sharply pointed leaves which grow close to the ground. From 
the center of this cluster of leaves, the flower-branch arises, carrying 
a close inflorescence of blue flowers. It is from this whole inflores- 
cence that the fruit is formed, just as the fruit of pandan is formed 
from the inflorescence of female flowers. So, you see, the plant 
seems to have no need for a stem. The sharp-pointed, erect leaves 
are evidently arranged for growing in bright places, where the plant 
does not need a stem to lift its leaves up into the light. Since the 
plant is not a wind-lover, there is no need to lift the flowers up 
where the wind would be sure to strike them. This plant saves the 
work of making a stem. 

The cultivation of the pineapple is quite simple. It does not 
need much attention, and seems to have few enemies. The thick 
leaves do not easily die when there is little water. Of all cultivated 
plants, probably the pineapple needs the least water, and can live 
best where the soil is not rich. If you are going to start a garden 
of pineapples, it is best to set out the little suckers which come 




Pina, or pineapple. 



130 A NATURE STUDY READER 

from the base of the mature plants. Another way is to transplant 
the tuft of leaves which grows above the fruit, but this method does 
not seem to be so good as the other. 

The strong spines which grow from the edges of the leaves 
make the pineapples rather difficult to handle. In many tropical 
countries, especially in the West Indies, this plant is cultivated on 
large farms. When the men work among them they wear leggings 
and stiff gloves to protect themselves against the spines. Can you 
understand the purpose of these spines ? Since the pineapple is 
able to grow in places which are dry and hot, where plants with 
tender leaves can not grow, it has all the more need to protect itself 
from leaf-eating animals. 

Have you ever noticed the seeds of the pineapple ? Can you 
see them when you cut a fruit in slices to eat it ? You may look 
at the fruit a long time without ever noticing the seeds. Not even 
seeds so small and weak as those of lacatan are to be found in the 
center of the fruit, but if you look carefully at the outer part you 
may find them. They are borne very close to the outer skin, and 
are usually very small. There are other well-known fruits which 
do not have their seeds in the center. Probably you have all heard 
of the strawberry and have seen pictures of it. It is one of the 
finest fruits of temperate regions. The strawberry carries its many 
small seeds on the outside of the fruit, so that the birds are sure to 
swallow them when they peck at it. 

When pineapples are gathered, if they are to be shipped to 
other countries, they must be very gently handled and carefully 
packed, for they will quickly rot if the tough skin is bruised or 
injured in any way. So long as the skin is air-tight the fruit keeps 
very well. Like the bananas, if they are to be shipped, they must 
be gathered before they are ripe. They will ripen on the journey. 



PINA OR PINEAPPLE 1 3 1 

It is rather difficult to find the flowers of the pineapple, for 
they quickly disappear and the fruit begins to form. When flowers 
grow in such close inflorescences it does not take long to accomplish 
the work of pollination. Then the flowers disappear, for their part 
of the work of reproduction is done, and the plant gives its whole 
attention to forming the fruit. In the case of the pineapple this is 
rather a slow process, for a large, compound fruit is to be formed 
from the working together of many little flowers. 

If you do find the flowers, you will see in each one three blue 
petals, six stamens, and a three-parted, fleshy stigma for receiving the 
pollen. The stamens are shorter than the petals, and the style is a 
little longer than the stamens. At the bottom of the flower you will 
find a small calyx. At the side of each flower is a stiff, little leaf, 
with sharp teeth, like the teeth of a saw, along its edges. These 
little leaves, with their saw-teeth, are there for the same purpose as 
the sharp spines along the edges of the large leaves. They are for 
protection against hungry and thirsty animals. Of course when the 
pineapple is growing in a garden it really needs no such protection, 
yet it tells us very plainly by its structure that its natural home is in 
dry and sandy places where a sort of coat-of-armor is much needed. 
Think how quickly the fruit of the pineapple would be eaten, before 
it is ripe, by hungry animals if it were not so well protected by its 
stiff and spiny coat ! If we did not have knives for cutting it open, 
we would find the task of eating this fruit very difficult ourselves. 



132 A NATURE STUDY READER 

CHAPTER XXIX 

CALACHUCHE 

This strange little tree is to be found in many Philippine gar- 
dens. Its light-colored stems and branches, its large, leathery leaves, 
and its fragrant, white flowers are familiar to you all. Does it bear 
flowers all the year round, or only at certain seasons ? 

Calachuche is grown in other parts of the Oriental tropics quite 
as much as in the Philippine Islands, yet its native home is in the 
American tropics. For many years it has been much esteemed in 
India and Ceylon as a sacred plant. Great heaps of the fragrant blos- 
soms are placed before the idol in Buddhist temples as a form of wor- 
ship. From these same blossoms a pleasant perfume called frangipani 
is made. Here in the Philippines the flowers of calachuche are 
much prized for decorations, since they do not wilt easily. They 
keep their fresh look long after they are picked, and, as they slowly 
wither, the sweet odor seems to become even sweeter than before. 

Have you ever looked for the stamens and pistil in the flowers 
of calachuche ? Have you ever found them ? Probably not, for 
the flower at first seems to be perfectly sterile. A sterile flower is 
one which produces no seed-making parts. The five white and yel- 
low petals of calachuche unite in a tube, and nothing is to be seen 
of either stamens or pistil, which are the seed-making parts. Even 
when we cut the flower open there seems to be nothing inside the 
corolla, unless you look very carefully just at the bottom of the tube. 
There you may see some small structures, which, upon close exami- 
nation, prove to be five stunted, or " dwarf," stamens. Can you 
find them ? These dwarf stamens have sharply pointed anthers, but 




XI 
U 

"3 
U 



134 A NATURE STUDY READER 

they hardly ever have any pollen. It is plain that they are parts of 
the plant which are no longer needed. Once they must have had an 
important work to perform, but now the plant seems to have almost 
forgotten to produce them. 

Evidently this is a flower which has lost the power of seed-pro- 
duction. Very rarely is a fruit of calachuche found. This is another 
case of a plant under cultivation which has given up the work of 
seed-making. Do you know what means of reproduction it has 
instead of seeds ? Does it have to be reproduced in an artificial way, 
that is by the aid of men ? 

Though the power of seed-making is gone, calachuche seems to 
still hold out an invitation to insect-visitors. The white corollas 
with their orange-colored centers and pleasant fragrance, are surely 
for the purpose of attracting flying insects. Have you ever seen 
any insects visiting them ? 

The petals are thick, which is one of the reasons why the flow- 
ers remain fresh so long after they have been taken from the tree. 
They have enough moisture in them to keep from drying out very 
soon, as the thin petals of gumamela do in a very short time after 
they have been taken from the bush. The petals of calachuche also 
have the peculiar habit of overlapping. The edge of each one 
covers the edge of its neighbor on one side, and is covered by the 
edge of its neighbor on the other side. Do you know any other 
flowers whose petals have this habit ? 

After all, there is nothing very new to us in the flower of 
calachuche. We have already studied flowers which have lost the 
power of producing good seed. Which flowers were they ? That 
fact is an old story to you. But there is another very important 
fact of plant life which you have not yet learned, and which cala- 
chuche illustrates for us better than any plant which you have 



CALACHUCHE 135 

studied. That is the fact that rest is necessary for plants just as it is 
for animals. They can not work all the time. Have you ever seen 
a calachuche-tree at rest ? 

Some plants, of which the tree you call acacia is the most com- 
mon example, seem to close their leaves at night. Have you ever 
noticed the acacia folding up the leaflets of its compound leaves 
about the time the sun goes down ? This habit makes the acacia 
one of the most desirable trees to have near our houses and along 
our streets. In the daytime it gives a splendid shade, and at night 
its leaves fold up so that all the refreshing breeze can reach us. Do 
you know any plants besides acacia which close their leaves at 
night ? Sometimes this closing of leaves at night is called the 
" sleep of plants," yet it should not be compared with the sleep of 
animals, for the plant is really at work all night long. The rest of 
plants is quite different from the folding up of leaves at night. 

Now we can tell very easily when the calachuche is at rest, at 
least from the work of food-making, or leaf-work, for then it loses 
all its leaves. Some other common trees of the Philippine Islands 
lose all their leaves at one time. Cupang and dap-dap are examples. 
Do you know any others ? Trees which remain for some months 
without leaves are not common in the tropics. They are the excep- 
tions to a general rule. Most of the trees are covered with leaves 
the year round, yet we may be sure that even these trees do take a 
rest from leaf-work. They seem to be quite different from trees 
like calachuche, for one part of the tree rests and then another part ; 
not the whole tree at once. While some branches, or parts of 
branches are at rest, all the other parts of the plant are hard at 
work. So, unless we watch the plant very carefully, it seems to us 
to be at work all the time. 

This is a fact of plant life which is also illustrated by the way 



I36 A NATURE STUDY READER 

in which flowers appear. How many plants do you know which 
bear flowers the whole year round? Most plants seem to save up 
their strength for a particular season, and do the work of flower- 
bearing only at that time. Some plants bear flowers first on one 
part, then on another The tree which you call ditaa is an example 
of such plants. The many, little, white flowers of ditaa appear first 
upon several branches. Then the tree seems to take a rest for two 
or three weeks. Then the flowers begin to appear again upon other 
brancheSo So the ditaa often seems to have three or four different 
times of flower-bearing, but really this is only because the work is 
not done by the whole plant at the same time. Perhaps this is 
because the plant can not make food enough to supply flowers upon 
all its branches at the same time. Have you ever noticed any plants 
besides ditaa which have this habit ? 

In the temperate regions, as you know, nearly all the trees lose 
their leaves as winter comes near. In the tropics there is no such 
general loss of the leaves at one time, and this is probably the great- 
est difference between plant life in temperate regions and that in the 
tropics. In temperate regions plants are forced to take their chief 
rest in the winter, for then water is turned to ice. You have already 
learned how necessary water is to plant-work. Yet you must not 
suppose that even in winter the trees are entirely at rest. Of course 
many small plants die when the cold weather comes, and grow up 
again from seeds or bulbs in the warm spring months. These are 
called annual plants. But the trees, which grow for many years, do 
not stop all their work in the winter. Deep under the ground, 
where the water does not turn to ice, their roots keep on growing. 

Now in the tropics there is usually no time of year at which 
the plants are forced to take their rest. They seem to be able 
to choose their own time for resting. The conditions of weather 



DAP-DAP AND SPANISH FLAG 137 

nearly always permit them to be at work, unless there is some other 
reason, which we cannot see, which prevents them. For this reason 
people often think that tropical plants work the whole year long. 
Yet we have learned that, even if the weather is always pleasant, 
the plants must rest at some time or other. Calachuche proves this 
to uSo There seems to be no reason why it should not bear leaves 
at one time just about as well as at another, yet we know that it is 
always certain to take a long rest. 

Have you ever noticed that the flowers of calachuche some- 
times appear while the tree still has very few leaves ? This shows 
us that the plant has stored up in its stem and roots enough food to 
produce these flowers without the help of the new leaves. You 
have learned that the green parts of plants are the only parts which 
can make food, and you know that nothing can grow when there is 
no food. So, when the plant grows while there are no green parts 
on it, we may be sure that a good deal of food was stored up when 
the leaves were at work before. 



CHAPTER XXX 

DAP-DAP AND SPANISH FLAG 

The awkward red flowers of dap-dap, and the very graceful 
red and yellow ones of Spanish Flag, are both quite different indeed 
from those you have already studied. A tree of dap-dap in full 
bloom is a very striking and handsome sight. The flowers are 
massed in large inflorescences, and the brilliant color of their large 
petals makes the tree as striking to the eye as though it were in 

19 




Dap-dap. 



DAP-DAP AND SPANISH FLAG 139. 

flames at night. Yet how awkward and graceless is a single one of 
the flowers of this handsome plant when it is separated from the 
inflorescence ! Its loose, ungainly structure is only redeemed by its 
splendid color. 

What flower is there, on the other hand, which has a more 
graceful and exquisite form than the Spanish Flag ? Its beauty is 
made all the more evident by the dignified way in which the flowers 
are carried. The loose and slender-stemmed inflorescences of this 
plant give each flower ample room in which to extend its curving, 
separate petals. They are not huddled together in a close bunch as 
the flowers of dap-dap. It seems as though the dap-dap were trying 
to get the most striking color-effect by massing its brilliant flowers 
close together, at the same time concealing their ungainly shape. 
The Spanish Flag, however, has nothing to hide. How proudly it 
extends each petal and stamen, as though to invite close inspec- 
tion ! What the Spanish Flag loses in masses of color, it seems to 
make up in dignity and grace. Which of these two handsome 
flowers do you think would attract you first ? 

Dap-dap and Spanish Flag both belong to that great family of 
tropical plants which you learned about in the chapter on macahia, 
the family Leguminosse, whose fruits are called pods. The plants 
which form one great division of this family bear flowers which are 
very irregular in structure, and the dap-dap is an example of this 
division. The macahia, on the other hand, belongs to another 
division whose flowers are quite regular, as you have seen for your- 
self. Now there is a third division whose flowers are less regular 
than those of macahia, but more regular than those of dap-dap. 
The Spanish Flag is an example of this division. You might well 
believe that flowers so different as these would belong to separate 
families, but their kinship is shown by the fruits they bear. Every 



140 A NATURE STUDY READER 

one of them produces a pod-fruit which, as you know, is quite dif- 
ferent from all other kinds of fruit. 

The only other irregular flower which you have studied is that 
of butuhan, yet the corolla of butuhan is quite regular as compared 
with that of dap-dap. A regular flower is one which may be divided 
into similar halves in more than one way. It is said to have " radial 
symmetry," as a wheel has radial symmetry, because it may be 
divided into similar halves along different lines which pass through 
the center. Probably you have already learned that a line from the 
center to the outside of a circle is called a " radius," and that any- 
thing which has a regular shape is said to have "symmetry." Now 
it is very easy to see that neither the flower of dap-dap nor the 
flower of Spanish Flag has radial symmetry. So they are called 
irregular. Some of the most beautiful flowers that grow in the 
tropics are irregular. The orchids, which belong to the class of 
plants you call "dapo," are thought by most people to be the most 
beautiful of all flowers. They are all irregular. Each different 
shape is probably for the purpose of attracting a different kind of 
insect. You can better understand how important the work of 
cross-pollination is when you think of the many strange shapes and 
structures, colors and odors, which different flowers have, and which 
plants seem to have invented simply for the purpose of attracting 
insects. 

The dap-dap is like calachuche in losing nearly all of its leaves 
in certain months of the year. Can you tell the months in which 
calachuche and dap-dap have no leaves ? The leaves of dap-dap are 
compound and divided into three, large, heart-shaped leaflets, as 
you may see in the picture. It is quite exceptional to find a mem- 
ber of this great plant-family whose compound leaves are divided 
into only three leaflets. Usually there are several pairs of leaflets. 




Spanish Flag. 



H 2 A NATURE STUDY READER 

as you have seen in the leaves of macahia and acacia. The one at 
the end is said to be "terminal." The ones at the side are said to 
be "lateral." 

Do you think that the flower of dap-dap looks at all like a 
butterfly ? That division of plants to which dap-dap belongs, on 
account of the shape of the flowers, takes its name from a Latin 
word meaning butterfly. Do you know any other plants with 
flowers of this shape ? They are quite common in the Philippines. 
How many stamens do you find in the flower of dap-dap ? Can 
you think of any reason why they should have such very long fila- 
ments ? That long, slender part of the stamen which is below the 
anther is called the "filament." At what time of year can you find 
the pods of dap-dap ? Do you know any useful purpose for them ? 
Is medicine ever made from the bark or fruit of this plant ? 

If you can get a flower of the Spanish Flag you should study it 
carefully and compare it with that of dap-dap. Probably there is 
no other flower whose colors are so nearly like those of the flag of 
Spain. The anthers are the only parts which are not either red or 
yellow. They are dark purple, and since they are so prominent you 
can easily examine their structure. Nearly all anthers are joined to 
the filaments at one end. but the anthers of this flower are fastened 
in the middle. They move easily, as though they were fastened on 
a hinge. Do you think that this arrangement makes it more certain 
that the visiting insect will carry pollen away with him ? Now if 
you look at an old flower, before it has begun to wither, you can see 
how the pollen escapes from the anther. Old anthers are open and 
empty. The opening by which the pollen has escaped is a long slit 
in the side. Some anthers open by little holes in the ends. 

You can understand the structure of the flower best if you open 
a bud and see how the young parts are snugly packed away in their 



DAP-DAP AND SPANISH FLAG 



H3 



covering. The whole bud is covered by one of the sepals, which 
has the shape of a hood. When the flower is open this hood-shaped 
sepal is on the under side. You might easily mistake it for a petal 
unless you look carefully, for it is colored and much larger than the 
other sepals. Inside the bud you will find the ten stamens with 
their long filaments all very 
smoothly folded together. There 
are five petals, and they have 
three different shapes. The odd 
one stands up between the 
others at the top of the flower 
and is called the " standard." 
The hood-shaped sepal is some- 
times called the "keel," because 
it resembles the keel of a boat. 
Have you ever noticed that the 
yellow color of the petals gradu- 
ally fades as the flowers become 

older ? Old flowers are almost entirely red. The pod of this plant 
is flat, as though it had been pressed. Do you know any other 
plants of this family which have flat pods ? The compound leaves 
of Spanish Flag have seven or eight pairs of leaflets, and are folded 
up at night like the leaves of acacia. 

Thus, each new plant which you examine will teach you much 
about the lives of plants, and their value and importance to man, 
who could not live without their help. 




A single flower of the Spanish Flag, and a 
bud with calyx and corolla removed. 



THE END 



21 



